50/- ` ISSN 0970-647X | Volume No. 37 | Issue No. 12 | March 2014 12 | March | Issue No. 37 No. | Volume 0970-647X ISSN
Article Cover Story BITCOIN – An Overview of the A Big Need for Indic-Language Solutions 7 Popular Digital Cryptocurrency 27
Technical Trends CIO Perspective Digitized Document Processing – Critical Success Factors of Global Character Recognition Techniques 9 Video Conference: A Case Study 31 Article Utility Computing and Cloud Computing - Card Skimming A Major Threat Summary of Speech by
www.csi-india.org www.csi-india.org to E-Commerce 23 Prof. V. RajaramanCSI Communications 42 | March 2014 | 1 Inviting Proposals from CSI Student Branches to Organize National / Regional / State Level CSI Student Conventions During the Year 2014-15
Computer Society of India (CSI) organizes National, Regional, and State level Student Conventions annually, at the active Student Branches across India. These Conventions promote the awareness on technological developments and applications, and foster creative professional orientations among the student community. The Conventions off er excellent opportunities to the students to manifest their technical profi ciency and prowess through paper presentations, discussions and extensive interactions with peers and pioneers.
CSI invites Proposals from Student Branches to conduct the National / Regional / State level Student Conventions to be held during the academic year 2014-15 (April to March).
Criteria: The proposing Student Branch should be very active, with a track record of several CSI activities, and be in good standing through the years 2013-14 and 2014-15.
The proposals for convention will be evaluated, broadly based on the parameters given below. a) Number of years of continuous valid student branch at the college (without break) b) Average student strength over the past three years c) Number, quality and level of activities at the student branch d) Prompt submission of activity reports and fi nancial accounts e) Ability to attract good speakers from Industry f) Availability of infrastructure and other resources g) Financial strength and potential h) Accessibility and other general conditions
Schedule: State, Regional Student Conventions: To be conducted before January 2015 National Student Convention: To be conducted in February/March 2015
All the State and Regional Student Conventions are to be completed according to the above schedule, so that the winners can participate in the National Student Convention to be held in February / March 2015.
The CSI Student Convention Manual (Please see http://www.csi-india.org/web/education-directorate/student-convention-manual1) describes the guidelines and norms to conduct the student conventions.
The Proposal: Interested Student Branches are requested to send electronic proposals with all necessary data, including the information stated below. a) Type of convention proposed: National/Regional/State level (Proposers of National Convention must have ability to mobilize participation from multiple states and experience of having conducted regional/state level convention earlier ) b) Proposed dates (at least two days) – please indicate two sets of dates c) A statement of case why the SB should be considered favourably for the proposed event d) Signed undertaking by the head of the institution to provide all the required support (Document with Scanned signature) e) Name and contact details of the coordinator-designate for the proposed convention
How to send: The Student Branches may send the proposals through the respective Regional Student Co-ordinator (http://www.csi- india.org/web/guest/about-csi) who may subsequently forward the proposals to the National Student Co-ordinator (mini.ulanat@ gmail.com), with a copy to Education Directorate (admn.offi [email protected]).
Time line: Interested Student Branches may please send the proposals with all details through proper channel as explained above to reach CSI Education Directorate before 10 April 2014.
Selection: A Committee constituted by CSI, including the Honourary Secretary, National Student Co-ordinator, Director (Education) will assess the proposals and make the decisions.
CSI Support: CSI extends partial fi nancial assistance, in accordance with the availability of budgetary resources, subject to the approval of the Executive Committee. CSI also supports the publicity eff orts for the Conventions.
Convention Helpline: CSI-Education Directorate shall be pleased to off er any information or help on the convention. Please do contact Mr Gnanasekaran (email: admn.offi [email protected] Mobile : 98403 41902) for any assistance.
Rajan T Joseph Director (Education) Computer Society of India Education Directorate, National Headquarters C I T Campus, 4th Cross Road, Taramani, Chennai 600113 Ph: +91-44-2254 1102/1103/2874; Fax: +91-44-2254 1143 CSI Communications Contents
Volume No. 37 • Issue No. 12 • March 2014
Editorial Board Cover Story Role of Optimization Techniques A Big Need for Indic- 25 in Digital Image Watermarking Chief Editor 7 Language Solutions Baisa L Gunjal and Dr. Suresh N Mali Dr. R M Sonar Dr. Deepali Kamthania BITCOIN – An Overview of the Editors 27 Popular Digital Cryptocurrency Dr. Debasish Jana Technical Trends Mr. K V N Rajesh Dr. Achuthsankar Nair Digitized Document Processing – 9 Character Recognition Techniques Resident Editor K Magesh Practitioner Workbench Mrs. Jayshree Dhere Programming.Tips() » Research Front 29 How to Connect PHP into Catalysing the Education Revolution MYSQL Database? Dr. K Valarmathi 12 Through ICT Based 24X7 Engagements of Students Dr. K Kotecha and Dr. Richa Mishra Programming.Learn(“R”) » Published by 30 File Input and Output – Part II Executive Secretary A Research Oriented Undergraduate Umesh P and Silpa Bhaskaran Mr. Suchit Gogwekar 14 Curriculum: Design Principles and For Computer Society of India Concrete Realization Rajeev Sangal CIO Perspective Design, Print and Critical Success Factors of Global Dispatch by 31 Video Conference: A Case Study CyberMedia Services Limited Articles Dushyant Thatte, Gurmeet Rao, Know Your Metadata Nupur Ray, and Sandeep Bhatt 1 6 Sriram Raghavan and Prof. S V Raghavan Social Media and Educational Security Corner 2 1 Institutions- Evolutionary Dynamics Information Security » Prerna Lal 34 Security Features in Contemporary Browsers for the Users
Card Skimming A Major Krishna Chaitanya Telikicherla, Harigopal Threat to E-Commerce K B Ponnapalli and Dr. Ashutosh Saxena 23 Hemant Kumar Saini and Anurag Jagetiya Please note: CSI Communications is published by Computer Society of India, a non-profi t organization. Views and opinions expressed in the CSI PLUS Communications are those of individual authors, contributors and advertisers and they may IT.Yesterday(): CSI Surat Chapter diff er from policies and offi cial statements of 38 CSI. These should not be construed as legal or Dr. N L Kalthia professional advice. The CSI, the publisher, the editors and the contributors are not responsible Brain Teaser for any decisions taken by readers on the basis of Dr. Debasish Jana 39 these views and opinions. Although every care is being taken to ensure Ask an Expert genuineness of the writings in this publication, Dr. Debasish Jana 40 CSI Communications does not attest to the originality of the respective authors’ content. © 2012 CSI. All rights reserved. Happenings@ICT: ICT News Briefs in February 2014 H R Mohan 41 Instructors are permitted to photocopy isolated articles for non-commercial classroom use without fee. For any other copying, reprint or Inauguaral Speech Summary: Utility Computing and Cloud Computing republication, permission must be obtained Dr. Anirban Basu 42 in writing from the Society. Copying for other than personal use or internal reference, or of CSI News 44 articles or columns not owned by the Society without explicit permission of the Society or the CSI Reports 49 copyright owner is strictly prohibited.
Published by Suchit Gogwekar for Computer Society of India at Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, MIDC, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400 093. Tel. : 022-2926 1700 • Fax : 022-2830 2133 • Email : [email protected] Printed at GP Off set Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai 400 059.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 3 Know Your CSI
Executive Committee (2013-14/15) »
President Vice-President Hon. Secretary Prof. S V Raghavan Mr. H R Mohan Mr. S Ramanathan [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Hon. Treasurer Immd. Past President Mr. Ranga Rajagopal Mr. Satish Babu [email protected] [email protected]
Nomination Committee (2013-2014) Prof. H R Vishwakarma Dr. Ratan Datta Dr.Anil Kumar Saini
Regional Vice-Presidents Region - I Region - II Region - III Region - IV Mr. R K Vyas Prof. Dipti Prasad Mukherjee Prof. R P Soni Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States Rajasthan and other areas Orissa and other areas in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and and other areas in in Western India Central & South other areas in Northern India. East & North East India [email protected] Eastern India [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Region - V Region - VI Region - VII Region - VIII Mr. Raju L kanchibhotla Mr. C G Sahasrabudhe Mr. S P Soman Mr. Pramit Makoday Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh Maharashtra and Goa Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, International Members [email protected] [email protected] Andaman and Nicobar, [email protected] Kerala, Lakshadweep [email protected]
Division Chairpersons Division-I : Hardware (2013-15) Division-II : Software (2012-14) Division-III : Applications (2013-15) Prof. M N Hoda Dr. T V Gopal Dr. A K Nayak [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Division-IV : Communications Division-V : Education and Research (2012-14) (2013-15) Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra Dr. Anirban Basu [email protected] [email protected] Important links on CSI website » About CSI http://www.csi-india.org/about-csi Membership Subscription Fees http://www.csi-india.org/fee-structure Structure and Orgnisation http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/structureandorganisation Membership and Grades http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/174 Executive Committee http://www.csi-india.org/executive-committee Institutional Membership http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/institiutional- Nomination Committee http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/nominations-committee membership Statutory Committees http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/statutory-committees Become a member http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/become-a-member Who's Who http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/who-s-who Upgrading and Renewing Membership http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/183 CSI Fellows http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-fellows Download Forms http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/downloadforms National, Regional & State http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/104 Membership Eligibility http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/membership-eligibility Student Coordinators Code of Ethics http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/code-of-ethics Collaborations http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/collaborations From the President Desk http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/president-s-desk Distinguished Speakers http://www.csi-india.org/distinguished-speakers CSI Communications (PDF Version) http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-communications Divisions http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/divisions CSI Communications (HTML Version) http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-communications- Regions http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/regions1 html-version Chapters http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/chapters CSI Journal of Computing http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/journal Policy Guidelines http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/policy-guidelines CSI eNewsletter http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/enewsletter Student Branches http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/student-branches CSIC Chapters SBs News http://www.csi-india.org/csic-chapters-sbs-news Membership Services http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/membership-service Education Directorate http://www.csi-india.org/web/education-directorate/home Upcoming Events http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/upcoming-events National Students Coordinator http://www.csi-india.org/web/national-students- Publications http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/publications coordinators/home Student's Corner http://www.csi-india.org/web/education-directorate/student-s-corner Awards and Honors http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/251 CSI Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-awards eGovernance Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/e-governanceawards CSI Certifi cation http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-certifi cation IT Excellence Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csiitexcellenceawards Upcoming Webinars http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/upcoming-webinars YITP Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csiyitp-awards About Membership http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/about-membership CSI Service Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csi-service-awards Why Join CSI http://www.csi-india.org/why-join-csi Academic Excellence Awards http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/academic-excellence- Membership Benefi ts http://www.csi-india.org/membership-benefi ts awards BABA Scheme http://www.csi-india.org/membership-schemes-baba-scheme Contact us http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/contact-us Special Interest Groups http://www.csi-india.org/special-interest-groups Important Contact Details » For queries, correspondence regarding Membership, contact [email protected]
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 4 www.csi-india.org Prof. S V Raghavan President’s Message From : [email protected] Subject : President’s Desk Date : 1st March, 2014
Dear Members
It has been an eventful year. I enjoyed my term as the President of the Computer Society of India. As I sign off , I thought I must share my precious moments with the Honorable President of India.
Prof. S V Raghavan President Computer Society of India
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 5 Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, Debasish Jana and Jayshree Dhere Editorial Editors
Dear Fellow CSI Members,
Indic Computing is the cover theme of this issue is CSI Communications. Indic or Indian-language computing has been . . . . Indic computing can play a major role in the getting prominence today with ever increasing prolifi c growth of computing arena of India among the inhabitants to use of computers as well as mobile phones, be it for the class or interface with local languages in order to combat be it for the mass. India, being most populous democracy in the dominance of English in computing. world with over 1.2 billion people, needs local language enabled computing solutions to reach out to the masses. The Indian of Optimization Techniques in Digital Image Watermarking by Baisa constitution recognizes more than twenty scheduled languages L Gunjal of Amrutvahini College of Engineering Sangamner, and Indic computing can play a major role in the computing arena Ahmednagar and and Dr. Suresh N Mali of Sinhgad Institute of of India among the inhabitants to interface with local languages in Technology and Science, Narhe; BITCOIN – An Overview of the order to combat dominance of English in computing. Popular Digital Cryptocurrency by K V N Rajesh of Vignan’s Institute of Information Technology, Visakhapatnam. Recently we have been receiving a steady fl ow of contributions from various quarters. However it is rather sad to fi nd that the In our regular Practitioner Workbench column Programming. topic of Indic Computing did not receive the same amount of Tips() section, Dr. K. Valarmathi of Panimalar Engineering College response. Although it is understood that Indic Computing is a explains How to Connect PHP into MYSQL Database? Umesh P and topic of immense importance for a country like ours, it is rather Silpa Bhaskaran continue their write-ups on second part of File surprising to notice that not many contributions were received on Inputs and Outputs in R under Programming.Learn("R"). this theme. CIO Perspective section for Managing Technology is treasured The cover story of this month is titled A Big Need for Indic-Language with contribution from Dushyant Thatte, Gurmeet Rao, Nupur Solutions by Dr. Deepali Kamthania of Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Ray and Sandeep Bhatt of TCS on Critical Success Factors of Global Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi. Video Conference: A Case Study. Under Information Security She stresses upon the accomplishment of Indian local language section in Security Corner we have next article in the series on computing for the success of government-to-citizen initiatives like Security Features in Contemporary Browsers for the Users by Krishna “Each tiny drop makes a vast ocean”. Chaitanya Telikicherla, Harigopal K B Ponnapalli and Dr. Ashutosh Saxena of Infosys. Technical Trends section of this month is by K Magesh of Wipro Technologies, Bangalore, is on Digitized Document Processing Dr. N L Kalthia, Former Chairman, CSI Surat Chapter, pens his – Character Recognition Techniques, explaining the tricks and remembrance in IT.Yesterday(). Dr. Debasish Jana, Editor, CSI techniques of process of handwriting recognition. Communications presents crossword for those who want to test their ICT knowledge in Indic Computing under Brain Teaser Our Research Front section is enriched with two important column. H R Mohan, Vice President, CSI, AVP (Systems), The contributions. First one is titled Catalysing the Education Revolution Hindu, Chennai brings us the ICT News Briefs at a glance Through ICT Based 24X7 Engagements of Students, by Dr. K under various sectors in February 2014 under regular column Kotecha and Dr. Richa Mishra of Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Happenings@ICT. emphasizing upon the role of ICT to reach out neo form of education for new-age learners. Second one is part II of the last We have other regular features like CSI Announcements, CSI month’s article on A Research Oriented Undergraduate Curriculum: Reports and Chapter and Student Branch News. Remember we Design Principles and Concrete Realization, by Rajeev Sangal of eagerly await your feedback and welcome it at the email id csic@ IIT (BHU), Varanasi. It presents a sample curriculum based on csi-india.org. Do drop in a mail if you like the articles or even if you the concept explained in Part I of the article for undergrads with do not like them. Do provide your suggestions on what you would research orientation. like to read and learn about.
Our Article section is having fi ve contributions. Know Your On completing our third year of relationship with our favorite Metadata by Sriram Raghavan of Secure Cyber Space and Prof. S V readers of CSI Communications, we are looking forward to your Raghavan of IIT Madras; Social Media and Educational Institutions - opinions and suggestions. Select feedbacks will be published in Evolutionary Dynamics by Prerna Lal of International Management ReaderSpeak() in forthcoming issues. We are also publishing in Institute, New Delhi; Card Skimming - A Major Threat to E-Commerce this issue a Call for Contributions along with announcement of by Hemant Kumar Saini of RTU, Kota and Anurag Jagetiya of cover themes for next six issues. MLV Government Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara; Role
India, being most populous democracy in the world with With warm regards, over 1.2 billion people, needs local language enabled Rajendra M Sonar, Achuthsankar S Nair, computing solutions to reach out to the masses. Debasish Jana and Jayshree Dhere Editors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 6 www.csi-india.org Cover Dr. Deepali Kamthania Story Associate Professor, Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi
A Big Need for Indic-Language Solutions
India is a land of diverse culture with around 33 major languages and 1,652 dialects Indic Computing means computing in Indian Scripts and Languages. It from half-a-dozen diff erent language involves developing software in Indic Scripts/ languages, Input methods, groups. Each culture and community has Localization of computer applications, Web development, Database their own language. The large sections of management, OCR, Spell-checkers, Speech to text and Text to speech our population fi nd impossible to navigate applications etc. in Indian languages. interfaces, interact with gadgets and in essence, utilize the potential of various development, Database management, 1. Project Bhasha is a comprehensive communication technologies. Globally, OCR, Spell-checkers, Speech to text and program which aims to localize the English domination of computing has Text to speech applications etc. in Indian Microsoft's fl agship products, increased the problems of getting Indian languages. Windows and Offi ce in 12 Indian scripts to work on this powerful tool. Over the years, signifi cant research Languages People throughout the world have has gone into Indic language computing. 2. Bhasha Online Community portal is been using computers and Internet in However, the lack of a standard practice India's leading community for Indian their own languages. Somehow, Indian has resulted in a largely “fragmented” language computing. users are compelled to use them in approach to basic things such as input 3. The Indic Language Input tool is English. Programmers and software from methods, effi cient search or even creating a phonetic based keyboard which facilitates users to input localized India have been a glorifi ed and lucrative platform-independent fonts. A lot of Indic text easily and quickly. The Indic export to the West but people in India Computing projects are going on. They Language Input tool is available in two are still groping for a common language involve government sector companies, versions; the desktop version enables of communication. This has pushed India volunteer groups and individual people. the user to enter Indian language text to the top of the list of countries suff ering The Department of Electronics and directly into any application running Information Technology, India initiated from the Digital Divide. Indian engineers on Windows, such as Microsoft and scientists, dominant force in the the TDIL (Technology Development for Word or Outlook. The web version IT world have faced criticism for being Indian Languages) with the objective allows the user to enter text on any grossly negligent of the needs of common of developing Information Processing web page - such as Live mail or man from their own region. Tools and Techniques to facilitate Windows Live Messenger - without The Indian-language word processors human-machine interaction without requiring software download. and spreadsheets are badly needed. language barrier; creating and accessing The tool currently supports ten Solutions in a few major languages multilingual knowledge resources; and languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, would immediately open up computing integrating them to develop innovative Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, to hundreds of millions. Indian language user products and services. C-DAC Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. computing has yet to make an impact on (Centre for Development of Advanced 4. Language Interface Packs (LIPs) in the vast majority of the people living in Computing) an India based government 12 Indian languages - Assamese, the Indian subcontinent. Organizations software company is also involved in Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, are trying to widen India's computing base developing language related software. Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, and take IT solutions to the rural areas. To It is best known for developing InScript Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu- for MS bridge the digital divide and leverage the Keyboard, the standard keyboard for Offi ce and Windows. A total of 45 power of information and communication Indian languages. It has developed a lot of additional soft (virtual) keyboards, technology it is essential to reach out Indic language solutions including Word which are free to download, are also to masses and overcome the language Processors, typing tools, text to speech available in these 12 languages. barrier. Long delayed in its arrival, Indian- software etc. CDAC, Bangalore (earlier 5. The Microsoft Captions Language language computing is today reaching out known as NCST, Bangalore) developed Interface Pack (CLIP) is a simple for help from varied sources. OpenOffi ce 2.1 that support over 10 Indian language translation solution that Indic Computing means computing in languages. Big players, Microsoft and uses tooltip captions to display Indian Scripts and Languages. It involves Google also contributed in this direction results. The CLIP can be used as a language aid, to see translations in developing software in Indic Scripts/ by releasing Free transliteration products. your own dialect, update results in languages, Input methods, Localization Some other projects are as follows: your own native tongue or use it as a of computer applications, Web learning tool. To bridge the digital divide and leverage the power of information and Some Factor that Slowed Down the communication technology it is essential to reach out to masses and Localization Process overcome the language barrier. 1. The government agencies such as CDAC have chosen to “lock up” a
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 7 with the Centre for Excellence in Wireless As mobile phone penetrates the vast rural areas of the country, it also brings and Internet. A major stumbling block in internet to the masses. Consequently, the need for local language websites is adopting Indic language computing has now greater than ever. In the technological front, viewing Indian language web been the input interface. pages have become much easier with Opera Mini browser. A potential way around this hurdle is presented by the ‘touch screen' lot of the innovation with patents Other Eff orts to Provide Indic technology. With crashing price points of touch devices and the entry of tablets and licenses rather than accelerating Support with screens that off er higher resolutions, the process. If any scientifi c invention has literally developing an input standard for them can 2. The non-adoption of standards: touched the lives of billions around the help in speeding up deployment. Most Indic scripts use Unicode for world then it is undauntingly the mobile In June 2013, DeitY had also working on computers and internet phone. The number of Indians accessing but Karnataka Government is yet to created a repository of fonts for all 22 internet using mobile phone is growing adopt Unicode for e-governance and constitutionally recognized languages much faster as compared to those of data storage. through TDIL. These fonts are available as desktops or laptops. With upcoming a CD that can be procured from TDIL or launch of 4G services by private It is believed that not enough eff orts from the entire suite can also be downloaded operators, this number could grow even the Government are focused on adoption from the TDIL website. faster. Mobile phone is also the most of standard, either on regular desktops, or economical personal device for accessing In July 2013, Technology Development on mobile phones. On the other hand, lot for Indian Languages Programme (TDIL) of actions are being taken by corporate, internet in India. One can buy an internet- enabled handset almost at the same of DeitY (Department of Electronics and who come in with limited interests and a IT) had developed Urdu language fonts framework for standardization and adoption. price of a high-end modem. As mobile phone penetrates the vast rural areas of and keyboard drivers for Windows and IndLinux, the mother project of Android. all Indic Localization eff orts, regularly the country, it also brings internet to the conducts workshops throughout the masses. Consequently, the need for local Conclusion country to brainstorm certain issues, language websites is now greater than If government-to-citizen initiatives are to come up with new ideas and demonstrate ever. In the technological front, viewing succeed, Indian local language computing Indic computing to the general public. Indian language web pages have become is a must. Certain initiatives in this The Indic-Computing Consortium is much easier with Opera Mini browser. direction have been taken by government, an initiative of software developers, In the cell phone space, these eff orts businesses and academic institutions to businesses and academic institutions to have been largely fragmented. Over 50 help the individuals all over the country evolve appropriate standards, resources alphabets have to be mapped to around 12 to communicate and also work in their and technologies for the Indic-Computing keys, each company tried to do their own language. Like “Each tiny drop makes a vast community. Other smaller groups are mapping, or purchase-related IP. So, while ocean” certainly these small initiatives also being seen as key players in the fi eld local language support was deployed on will break the language barrier via Indic including the IIT-Madras group that has basic feature phones (phones priced on Computing. been working and incubating innovative the low-end), little eff orts were made to Indian-language solutions, the NCST market this. The several high end Android References phones, many of the Samsung models [1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ (National Centre for Software Technology) karnataka/bringing-down-the-language- in Mumbai and the IIIT (International and the iPhones are coming with language barrier/article2907797.ece Institute of Information Technology) in support. [2] http://www.microsoft.com/india/ Hyderabad, which has done impressive In 2009 and 2010, there was an msindia/msindia_ourmission_di_ industry attempt to evolve a standard languagecomputing.aspx work on machine-language translation [3] http://methopath.wordpress.com/category/ and related areas. where several companies joined to work indic-computing/ [4] http://www.medianama.com/2013/11/223- indian-govt-to-build-machine-translation- A major stumbling block in adopting Indic language computing has been the system-for-22-indic-languages/ input interface. A potential way around this hurdle is presented by the ‘touch [5] http://infochangeindia.org/technology/ screen' technology. features/indian-language-computing-the- long-road-ahead.html n
Dr. Deepali Kamthania received post graduate degree (MCA) in 1999, from Aligarh Muslim University (A.M.U.) and doctorate degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (I.I.T.D) in 2012. She is working as Associate Professor at Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management (BVICAM) for last 11 years. She has also worked with India Infotech, Verticalbiz.Com and Foxboro (Australia) Pvt. Ltd. Her areas of interest are Artifi cial Neural Networks, Solar Thermal Applications and Data Warehousing and Mining. She has published over 30 research papers in international and national journals of repute. She is life time member of CSI and ISTE. About the Author
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 8 www.csi-india.org Technical K Magesh Trends Senior Technical Consultant, FS-Java Technology Practice Group Wipro Technologies, Bangalore
Digitized Document Processing – Character Recognition Techniques
Digitizing documents plays a vital role on personalized devices (like: stylus Pre-processing the content in preserving history and easily storing & mobile devices). Such systems, Digitization of content through the content for a longer time. Digitizing though supportive to multiple-language scanning the document, binarization documents can be done for multiple content, operate based on the selected of characters extracted purposes like - language for a particular interpretation- Noise elimination, thinning the 1. Store the content to preserve for session and fail to address the mixed- strokes, normalizing and fi ltering anytime reference language content. 2. Analyze the content to interpret the Offl ine Character recognition Feature Extraction (by character, meaning. methods are more comprehensive and word, sentence, paragraph) fl exible in nature which is typically Segmentation of content into Neural networks play a vital role in based on training and built-in learning sections through explicit or implicit Language identifi cation and content mechanism for character identifi cation. split interpretation of such digitized Neural Networks are one of the most Transformation the content for size documents. But it is one of the biggest commonly used systems in Artifi cial normalization challenges in modern computer world Intelligence. Neural Networks are Detection of major features from to do Language identifi cation and particularly adept at recognizing patterns. trained data (analytics engine) interpretation of handwritten characters. This allows them to recognize something using top-down approach For example, it is always a big challenge in even when distorted. Matching data interpretation from cheques in banks, One possible operational solution to Recognition of character from language identifi cation and translated this is to create large number of possible trained data messages from ancient script in the form combinations of language & writing-style Context verifi cation from knowledge of manuscripts, palm scripts and stone with required classifi cation / grouping base carvings to name a few. If we do a deep & indexing to use the same for eff ective Store the content and process dive into this problem, the reason for this recognition. complete document challenge can be broadly classifi ed as Another possible operational a. costlier operation due to repeated or solution is to increase diversity of Understanding and Report multi-level manual operation character sampling when two or more Generate the content from digitized b. Time consuming when we reduce the language has similar scripts or strokes to data extracted error rate of interpretation minimize wrongly recognize ambiguous Send for post processing (eg: c. Multi-lingual content interpretation characters. When 2 characters in language detection, translation) would have these problems in diff erent languages appear to be exactly multi-fold. the same but have diff erent meaning in Sequential Steps during the process of the context of the word. handwriting recognition. Handwritten character recognition using Typically offl ine character recognition of Soft computing methods like Neural hard copy documents can be performed networks is always a big area of research from the following as input mode: for long time and there are multiple Landscape of processing technique theories and algorithms developed in the area of neural networks for handwritten User Interface User Configuration Admin Report character recognition including Genetic Layer Interface Module Generator algorithms, Mathematical/Statistical approach etc., Character recognition method can Language be broadly classifi ed as Online and offl ine Google API Assessment Language Knowledge Processing Layer recognition based on the approach or Library Engine List base mechanism of operation. Online character recognition systems are more suitable for dynamic scenarios that include Neural processing change in user and noisy environment Notation Layer infl uencing users’ handwriting. These Train data Process interpretation systems continuously build reference knowledgebase based on specifi c users
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 9 Character Recognition and Analysis Using Google Translate API Google Translate is a tool that automatically translates text from one language to another language. Translate API operations Technique in character extrac on and Language detec on There are three methods to invoke in the Google Translate API: • complete document read / scan • Reading character / word / sentence translate - translates source content from • sequential reading (word / sentence directly from the digital image of the a given source language to a given or wise) from the document (scan) document selected target language languages – shows a list of languages supported for source and target content detect – identify the possibility of language
We can call the translate API using REST (Representational State Transfer) and the translated response will be in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. From the translated result, we can get to know the information as depicted below. For example, when we have a character in tamil language as below, with the help of google translator API we can narrow down the language identifi cation as shown below Here the input is converted to Unicode to avoid misinterpretation of characters and send to Google Translator API engine to detect language. When we send input to the engine, fi rst we will check for Unicode conversion requirement and do the same. For example, if the input is English characters as shown below, then there is no need for Unicode conversion. Determining Processing Accuracy When we have a document having multiple languages, then it would be always a tough process to detect languages. It is a tedious and error prone process in automated language detection or in manual process as the translator person need to understand all the languages used in the document. Though the possibility of such a document is less as there is no real-time usecase available for such a requirement, it is always best to handle all possible alternate situations in usecases to avoid or minimize the mistakes in language detection and improvise the accuracy of the language detection process. To overcome this situation, I propose to separate the words in the input data and do language detection repeatedly Sample of Language Detec on (Non-unicoded content) with Google translator engine and identify list of languages
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 10 www.csi-india.org doContentExtraction(document); List languages = identifyLanguage(document. getContent()); } Else { Print “Invalid document. Cannot extract characters from document”; Exit } } // This method uses Neural network feature extraction method (third party library) to extract //content from document Document doContentExtraction(Doc document) { Document dc = null; String content = featureExtract(document); if (content == null) { trainCharacters(document); retryDocumentExtraction(document); } Else { dc = convertDocument(content); } Return dc; Sample of Language Detec on (Error due to Mul -language content) }
//This method calls Google Translate API (after splitting content into words) to get all list of // languages used in the document List identifyLanguage(Content content) { boolean isValid = validateContent(content); if (!isValid) { throw errorMessage; exit; } Else { var sourceText = escape(document. getElementById("sourceText").innerHTML); List
List callGoogleAPI(List
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 11 Since the logic involved is to integrate 47/2013 Dated 22/11/2013). All content Applications by S Rajasekaran and Google Translate API where we have and idea are copyrighted. G A Vijayalakshmi Pai from Eastern facility to detect language and also to Economy Edition Page-31-33 References translate the content, we can extend this [3] Neuro-Fuzzy and Soft Computing – A [1] "Wrangler replenishes with neural idea to automatic translation process. Computational Approach to Learning nets", Intelligent Systems Report, Jan and Machine Intelligence by Jyh- Acknowledgement 13-1, http://lionhrtpub.com/ISR/ISR- Shing Roger Jang. Publisher: Prentice This concept is a sub-section of US/India 1-96/1-96-wrangler.html Hall; 1 edition (September 26, 1997) patent fi led concept and acknowledged [2] Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic and # ISBN-10: 0132610663 # ISBN-13: by the patent (Indian Patent Journal Issue Genetic Algorithms – Sythethis and 978-0132610667 Page : 113-118 n
K Magesh is a Senior Technical Consultant from FS-Java Technology Practice Group in Wipro Technologies, Bangalore having 15+ years of IT experience. He is perusing his Ph.D in the fi eld of Neural Networks. He has registered a patent using above technique in Neural networks. He also owns a patent on Java deployment method in PaaS Cloud environment. About the Author
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 12 www.csi-india.org Dr. K Kotecha* and Dr. Richa Mishra** Research *Director, Institute of Technology Nirma University, Ahmedabad Front **Coordinator, Academic Development and Research Cell Nirma University, Ahmedabad Catalysing the Education Revolution Through ICT Based 24X7 Engagements of Students “The objective of Education is learning and not merely teaching” The learners are demanding and impatient and they demand tailor made, This postulation contradicts the interesting student engagement tools that go beyond the ‘brick and mortar’ traditional school of thinking, where classroom. They know that learning happens outside the classroom too. teaching is the act of reverence. In They welcome informal learning spaces without the calendar –restrictions. this archaic system teachers were the original knowledge creators, keepers Issues Related with New-Age standardisation of the education works and generators. The world in general and Learners against the fast and slow learners both. educational scenario in particular has These are the students, who from KG Whereas, asynchronous learning provided changed dramatically and drastically. to college have been born and bought by using technology which is 24X7, On one hand, it is offering information up in the environ of digital technology. actually helps learner to keep their own galore and plethora of experiences; A process, so subtle, so powerful, so pace, place and time. on the other hand, it is hinging on the fundamental that it has not only changed standardisation of education model, Concerns the kind of dress they wear, talk they do, delivery and content. Thus what they need is ‘Active Learning’ conduct they exhibit , attitude they fl aunt This creates a dichotomy; it creates whereas what present education system but it now has broken the very education a world having two diff erent defi nitions is providing them with is 'Passive system that is meant to teach them of education. One that defi nes Education teaching'. Active learning is anything they are ‘Digital Natives’. They demand as teaching process only, restricted course-related that all students in a class reformation, revolution and restructuring session are called upon to do other than inside the four walls of classes, labs and in the education system. They demand simply, watching, listening and taking tutorial rooms, provided single-handedly lifelong learning, thinking modules and notes. It is interactive and participatory. by a teacher, who is trying to teach and experiential teaching. It helps students develop conceptual produce almost identical replicas and The ubiquitous environment understanding of a topic, develop the claiming them as the people who can of digital technology makes their ability to fi lter information and draw usher us into the age of innovation and requirement and need quite diff erent conclusions, and develop the ability to betterment. The second is immense and from their predecessors. But sadly the consider other points of view. Passive liberated world that is for learners. It is full Policy makers/Decision body/Teachers vs. Active Learning can be tabulated of information, knowledge, and wisdom; are Digital immigrants, the one who are as under: it is the real world in which students still learning, struggling and accepting plunge headlong and then get perplexed. this new way to life trying to mend the Passive Active In this world learning, understanding and system. Activities prescribed Activities prescribed applying, is pragmatic and hands- on The learners are demanding and by teacher by learners approach unlike the fi rst one which is impatient and they demand tailor made, Whole class Small groups bookish and obsolete. interesting student engagement tools that instruction These give rise to all the hoopla and go beyond the ‘brick and mortar’ class Little variation in Many diff erent hullabaloo around the kind of Education room. They know that learning happens activities activities system, Curriculum and Students Quality outside the classroom too. They welcome we are having. But it ignores and rather informal learning spaces without the Pace determined by Pace determined by the programme learner neglects a very basic premise. Students calendar –restrictions. They are at ease today have changed. We call them 21st with brick and click classrooms. They The Classes today consist of century learners; but actually they are know and want to create a learner space heterogeneous groups having diverse ‘New Millennium Learners’. using interesting tools of technology. The needs and demands; they want to learn at their own pace and their own The world in general and educational scenario in particular has changed time. Organization today demands dramatically and drastically. On one hand, it is off ering information their employees to be team-players, galore and plethora of experiences; on the other hand, it is hinging on the collaborative members with good standardisation of education model, delivery and content. interpersonal skills. This can be provided by introducing Collaborative learning.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 13 Traditional Millennial to be made for students’ engagement run opinion polls among other activity teaching Teaching through: is possible through tools like Moodle, Monkey survey, Socrative, Web quest, Authoring Tools No link between Integrating theory Quiz maker and so on. theory and practice and practice Authoring tools like blog and wiki enables us to link hypertext and multimedia Separate subjects Relations between Interactivity Tools subjects objects. They also allow users to add, These tools give facility to interact with modify or even delete the content as per the groups of people who can share, edit Discipline-based Thematic the authority given by the moderator. or delete the information on a common Individual teachers Teams of teachers These tools promote participatory, webpage. collaborative and active learning. They Twitter-Micro blogging is the future Non-creative Creative improve writing / reading / understanding of learning and sharing, it creates a Reproductive Productive learning skills too. They also capture change of network, conversation threads and a real- learning thinking process of an individual. One time stream of micro messages which are Apply known Find new solutions can invite external experts on the blog searchable and can be archived. It can solutions to to problems for discussion. Plethora of multimedia be compiled using hash tags. Others are problems content can be easily shared and viewed in Tumblr, FriendFeed, Cif2.net, Plurk, Jaiku a most economical ways using these tools. and identi.ca, Reddit. Heralding the Change It is said that desperate times call for Delivery Tools Delivery Tools desperate measure. Keeping this in mind Reaching to the mass of people, sharing They are Massive Online Learning courses need is to transform the way; the learning idea, involving them in discussion in like Coursera, Udacity, Khan Academy.org is generated, dispersed, applied and this borderless world has really become among others. They have very high quality imparted. The need is to understand the possible due to delivery tools like interactive teaching material which limitations of “Teaching as a tool to impart Webinars, Open Meetings, Skype, Google enforces active and individual learning learning” and go beyond the obvious hangout, You tube, Slide share, TED talks, among the learners. solution. We need to embrace the way Podcasting, and NPTEL. One must use The ICT based interventions need digital natives communicate, understand the same for collaborative learning and deep commitment from the educationists and retain. information sharing to vast and diverse and policy makers. They need to go in The time is to provide 24x7 learning group of people. depth to see the need of the students and which provides fl exibility in the sense of also update the capacity of the teaching Social Activity Tools content selection and levels, accessibility faculty. The paradigm shift from teacher These tools help in collaborating with to students, convenient, asynchronous, as knowledge keeper to teacher as similar interest groups of people for in their own time and pace, economical, facilitator is very apparent. Need is also sharing idea and discussion on same off ering multiple experts and facilitating to judiciously amalgamate the content topics. Some of them are Facebook, multiple enrolment. and delivery modes so as to make learning pin interest, Research gate, Delicious, and student engagement more eff ective, Tools to Use ResearchID etc. The solution is embracing online learning practical and interesting . along with human contact hours. Blended Quizzing Tools: For Digital Natives learning is ‘fun’ learning is the apparent solution to the Every day new technology, processes whereas for digital immigrants it was dilemma of teaching digital natives. Eff ort are getting developed and its is highly almost an act of reverence. The task of should be made to integrate chalk and talk necessary to take feedback on the transforming the traditional, monotonous method with videos, e-resources including emerging areas, not only from within teaching to fulfi lled yet productive full textbooks, databases, e-libraries, the organizations but from external learning is challenging, non-conformist blogs (authenticated and validated by stake holders so that we can learn and yet possible. teachers/facilitators /mentors) , and relearn from experiences of others. Using n wikis among other tools. Efforts are quizzing tools to test, take feedback,
Dr. Ketan Kotecha is an Educationist and an avid researcher. He has guided several Masters and Doctoral Thesis. His Research interests include Artifi cial Intelligence, Computer Algorithms & Machine Learning and he has more than 50 papers published / presented in international conferences around the world, to his credit. He is M.Tech and Ph.D from IIT Bombay. Currently he is leading Institute of Technology, Nirma University as a Director. He is also a Dean, Faculty of Technology & Engineering and the Director of Academic Development & Research Cell of Nirma University. Dr. Richa Mishra is Section Head - Humanities in Institute of Technology and coordinator in Academic Development and Research Cell , Nirma University. She is also a member of Faculty of Technology & Engineering –Nirma University. She is actively working on various ICT based student engagement tool . About the Authors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 14 www.csi-india.org Rajeev Sangal Research Director, IIT (BHU), Varanasi Front A Research Oriented Undergraduate Curriculum: Design Principles and Concrete Realization [Main article under this title was published in Research Front section of CSI • Semester #1 Communications’ February 2014 issue. Here is a sample curriculum based on ICS101 Computer Programming 3-1-3-5 the concept explained therein which is now published as a continuation of ICS102 IT Workshop I 2-0-3-3 the article.] IEC101 Digital Logic and Processors 3-1-3-5 Appendix I: Streams and their Courses IEC102 Electrical Science I 3-1-0-2 Streams are based on research areas being pursued at an • Semester #2 institution. Here they are shown for IIIT-Hyderabad. ICS103 Data Structures 3-1-3-5 • Data Engineering ICS104 Computer System Organization 3-1-0-4 Database Systems, Data Warehousing and Data Mining, ICS105 IT Workshop II 2-0-3-3 Web Data and Knowledge Management, Advanced IEC103 Basic Electronic Circuits 3-1-3-5 Database Systems, Distributed Database Systems, Topics in Database Systems, Topics in Data Mining • Semester #3 • Language Technologies ICS211 Algorithms 3-1-0-4 Natural Language Processing, Natural Language ICS231 Operating Systems 2-1-1-3 Processing II, Natural Language Applications, Natural ICS241 Introduction to Databases 2-1-0-2 Language Dialog Systems, Information Extraction ICS261 IT workshop III 3-0-3-3 • Security, Theory and Algorithms • Semester #4 Computational Geometry, Cryptography and Network CSC371 Artificial Intelligence (*)1 3-1-0-4 Security, Topics in Information Security, Systems and CSC251 Graphics (*) 2-1-0-2 Network Security CSC311 Formal Methods 2-1-0-2 • Visual Information Technology • Semester #5 Graphics, Pattern Recognition and Statistical Methods, Bouquet Core 3-1-0-4 Image Processing, Machine Learning, Computer Vision Bouquet Core (*) 3-1-0-4 • VLSI and Embedded Systems Stream Research Stream/CS Course 3-1-0-4 Analog and Mixed Signal Design, Advanced CMOS VLSI CS Elective (*) 3-1-0-4 Design, Modeling and Simulation of High-Speed VLSI Systems, Embedded Robotics • Semester #6 • Robotics Stream (for ECE students) Bouquet Core 3-1-0-4 Embedded Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Linear Control ECE Elective 3-1-0-4 Systems, Computer Vision OR Image Processing Research Stream/CS Course 3-1-0-4 • Robotics (for CS students) Bouquet Core 3-1-0-4 Embedded Robotics, Mobile Robotics, Multi Agent There is a Math course in each of the fi rst three semesters. Systems, Introduction to Cognitive Science Semesters #7 and #8 have several electives in the discipline and • Communication Stream humanities etc. (Breadth courses, namely Science and Humanities Communication Theory II, Wireless Communication, courses are not shown.) Error Correcting Codes, Antennas and Propagation, Information theory and coding Appendix III: BTech (ECE) Curriculum for fi rst six • Signal Processing Stream semesters (disciplinary courses only, humanities Adaptive Signal Processing, Multi-rate Signal Processing, courses and projects not shown) Image Processing, Neural Network Each course is given with an ‘(L-T-P-C)’ block which denotes the number of contact hours for lectures, tutorials, practice or lab Appendix II: BTech (CSE) Curriculum for fi rst six sessions followed by credits that the course carries. semesters (disciplinary courses only, humanities • Semester #1 courses and projects not shown) Same as CSE curriculum Each course is given with an ‘(L-T-P-C)’ block which denotes the • Semester #2 number of contact hours for lectures, tutorials, practice or lab Same as CSE curriculum except EC workshop replaces sessions followed by credits that the course carries. IT workshop
1(*) means fl exi core. These courses can be postponed by the student and an elective can be taken instead. This allows, for example, stream courses to be taken up by the interested students as early as in 4th semester.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 15 • Semester #3 • Foundation Courses ( 3-1-0-4) ) ECE205 Linear Electronic Circuits 3-1-3-5 CSC311 Advanced Algorithms and Theory of ECE241 Signals & Systems 3-1-0-4 Computation ECE260 Electrical Science II (H1) 3-1-0-2 CSC471 Pattern Recognition and Statistical Methods ECE325 Embedded Hardware Design 3-0-3-4 CSC315 Principles of Programming Languages • Semester #4 CSC381 Numerical Techniques and Optimization ECE335 Communication Theory I 3-1-0-4 CSC318 Principles of Information Security ECE341 Digital Signal Processing 3-1-0-4 • Systems Courses ( 3-1-0-4) ECE339 ECE Lab 0-0-3-1 CSC431 Distributed Systems ECE361 Introduction to VLSI (*) 3-1-0-4 CSC441 Database Systems ECE291 Electronics Workshop II 1-0-4-4 CSC335 Computer and Communication Networks • Semester #5 CSC419 Advanced Compilers ECE381 Electromagnetic theory * 3-0-0-4 CSC461 Software Engineering EC Elective 3-0-0-4 Appendix V: Weightage in Curriculum for EC Elective 3-0-0-4 Diff erent Areas EC Elective 3-0-0-4 • Semester #6 BTech in CSE/ECE BTech (Honors) in CSE/ECE Communication Networks * 3-1-0-4 Course Type % minimum % minimum credits EC elective 3-1-0-4 (Rounded) credits (Rounded) CS Elective 3-1-0-4 Discipline 49 83 47 83 Math and There is a Math course in each of the fi rst three semesters. 19 32 18 32 Science Semesters #7 and #8 have several electives in the discipline and humanities etc. (Breadth courses, namely Science and Humanities Engineering 05 08 05 8 courses are not shown.) Humanities 17 28 16 28 Appendix IV: Bouquet Core Courses in Computer Projects (including 10 17 14 25 Science & Engg. workshops) Out of the courses below, at least three foundation courses and Total 100 168 100 176 three systems courses are to be done.
Prof. Rajeev Sangal holds a B Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, and MS and Ph D in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He is known for his work on computers and processing of human languages, and in particular on automatic translation among Indian languages. His research in Natural Language Processing led to the development of Computational Paninian Grammar (CPG) framework. As an educationist he has conceptualized and implemented a new curriculum with layered learning, hands-on work and research orientation as a part of undergraduate education. The
About the Author curriculum is also strong in Humanities including Human Values.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 16 www.csi-india.org Sriram Raghavan* and Prof. S V Raghavan** Article *Security and Forensic Consultant, Secure Cyber Space **Professor, Dept. of CS&Engg, IIT Madras
Know Your Metadata
Abstract: Recent events have provided the a more fl exible language for describing a “Metadata includes information set of keywords that fi t a pattern. If such much-needed impetus to understand the about the document or fi le that is a pattern too is unknown, one may have use of ‘metadata’ in everyday digital life. recorded by the computer (or digital Metadata are a part of any information very little to go on by during analysis. A that is stored digitally to simplify the similar argument can be extended to log device) to assist in storing and handling and management of data. More fi les as well. In regards to digital forensics retrieving the document or fi le. The recently, metadata has taken center-stage and security, this is often the case information may also be useful for with its potential for monitoring users and since the goal to determine “unknown system administration as it refl ects manipulating usage. abnormalities” that exist in a system data regarding the generation, Metadata contain information relating and fi x them. Typically, the information handling, transfer and storage of to who, how and when the artifacts were concerning what forms a pattern is not the document or fi le within the created or modifi ed or accessed, be it a readily made available to an examiner or computer (or digital device)” fi le, a log record or even a network packet. an analyst; naturally the eff ort involved in During analysis, focusing on metadata identifying such abnormalities involve a -Sedona Principles for Addressing enables us to understand the evolution of lot of trial-and-error. Electronic Document Production [10] artifacts and assess them in relation to other Metadata, on the other hand, artifacts. This article outlines the scope contains information that can be used 1 of identifying valuable information that to achieve the same objective. Besides, MAC timestamps , author (group), and one might fi nd useful for analysis during a metadata based search is amenable to word count, etc. Some metadata may forensic investigation or for security analysis automation by virtue of its ubiquitous also provide additional attributes such as purposes. We touch upon the use of metadata nature. This unique property of metadata content length, total edit time, line count, in log fi les and network packets but largely helps during analysis, as there is a need to last saved and printed timestamp, author focus on what is being stored today in digital identify all types of associations that exist group, last author, creator, publisher, etc. image fi les and word processing documents. between the artifacts. In the current-day Two important types of fi le metadata scenario where Big Data Analytics plays are fi le system metadata or metadata Analysis Using Metadata an important role, correlating metadata generated by the fi le system regarding that In the conventional system of analysis, across diff erent sources seems to hold fi le and application metadata or metadata content is analyzed for describing and much promise. generated by specifi c applications about understanding the artifacts in a storage Broadly, fi le system metadata and the content stored on such fi les. medium. This can include elaborate string application metadata are also often File system metadata searches and querying on documents referred to as external and embedded File system metadata record information and or signal processing techniques metadata since fi le system metadata is that relate to the fi le system and help it for complex pattern analysis on digital stored external to the document or fi le manage the fi le within that fi le system. image collections. Such content analysis it describes and application metadata is Buchholz and Spaff ord[1] provide a is carried out using “searching”. When embedded into it. qualitative treatment of fi le system searching a fi le or for a fi le, use of key metadata and their importance in words or key patterns is the norm. When File Metadata digital forensics and briefl y describe the the exact words are not known, one may Metadata, related to fi les, record use regular expression search which uses fi lename, location, fi le extension, size, diff erent types of fi le system metadata found in diff erent fi le systems. A comparison of some of the fi le system What is Metadata? metadata across a few popular fi le Metadata contain information describing aspects pertaining to the type they systems is tabulated in Table 1. are attributed to. Metadata provide context information that enables easy As Table 1 shows, the fi le system handling and management of the data contained, or in other words, for book- timestamps, i.e., the creation timestamp, keeping purposes. There are many diff erent types of metadata, such as system the last modifi cation timestamp and the metadata, fi le system metadata, application metadata, document metadata, last access timestamp are recorded by email metadata, business metadata, geographical metadata and many more. almost all fi le systems. Some fi le systems File system metadata describe attributes as recorded by a fi le system regarding also record when the metadata was the fi les, such as locations of fi les, MAC timestamps, fi le sizes, owners and changed but this is not quite common. access permissions. Application metadata describe attributes as recorded Some metadata like the fi le owner and access control are also recorded in some by the application handling the fi les such as fi le authors, fi le formats, content fi le systems which can come in handy types, and encoding. Thus, the term metadata is an umbrella defi nition to during investigations. File systems that encompass all such diff erent types of metadata. record access control lists are also found
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 17 File Stores File POSIX fi le Creation Last Access Last Modifi ed Last metadata Access Extended System Owner permissions timestamp timestamp timestamp change Control attributes timestamp lists FAT12 No No Yes Yes No No No No FAT16 No No Yes Yes Yes No No No FAT32 No No Yes Yes Yes No No No exFAT No No Yes Yes Yes Unknown No Unknown HPFS Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes NTFS Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes HFS No No Yes No Yes No No Yes HFS+ Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes EXT2 Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes EXT3 Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes EXT4 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Table 1. Comparison of fi le system metadata across diff erent fi le systems (adapted from Comparison of fi le system metadata, Wikipedia) to record POSIX fi le permissions and time, according to some reference clock, a web page characterized by a URI. The extended attributes are recorded in all of an associated event. A timestamp has attributes describing such an entry fi le systems introduced after FAT32. File a physical realization and a temporal contain the timestamp of web page visit, system metadata has been deep-seated interpretation[3]. The physical realization the domain, the host server IP address and in digital forensics and digital time-lining is an encoding as a pattern of bits while so on. Similarly, an entry in a network based on MAC timestamps is an integral the temporal interpretation stipulates the packet capture corresponds to a network part of an investigation. meaning of the bit pattern, the calendar packet that was observed by the network Application metadata date and time to which the pattern capture sensor on a particular network belonging to a specifi c protocol containing Application metadata is a blanket corresponds. Analysis of timestamps is the a source and destination address. A name given to information that various use of timestamps to generate a timeline network packet can be associated with applications store regarding the fi les they of all events on a source of evidence and/or for reasoning with the sequence a timestamp, source and destination IP operate on describing their attributes. addresses, and the protocol for transfer The National Information Standards in which certain events are recorded on [9] and payload size. Such information may Organization (NISO)[7] categorized that source. Raghavan and Raghavan proposed a timestamp correlation method be treated as metadata for a log record or application metadata into 3 categories, viz., a network packet, as the case may be. descriptive, structural and administrative to detect and attribute a phishing incident on a banking network. Metadata, by virtue of recording the metadata. Application metadata are partial state of a digital artifact, contain strongly reliant on the type of fi le they Extending Metadata to Logs and information of forensic value. During describe, i.e., the application metadata for Network packet trace analysis, it is often necessary to discover a text fi le diff ers signifi cantly from that of In the traditional sense, metadata are all higher order associations that exist a Microsoft document or a JPEG image native to fi les that reside on fi le systems. between the digital artifacts and metadata fi le. NISO review the prevalent metadata However, log records and network packets holds much promise. In the sequel, we structuring and describe the Dublin Core also have some associated information discuss the nature of analysis and identify Metadata Initiative (DCMI - ISO 15836). that can be attributed the term ‘metadata’. pertinent metadata families. Microsoft Offi ce documents have imbibed Although logs and network packet Nature of Analysis this specifi cation into their documents traces themselves reside as fi les in a which resulted in the OOXML metadata. The quest in the analysis of digital fi le system, the log entries and network evidence is the identifi cation of the Timestamp Metadata packets they contain are discrete artifacts events leading to the reported incident, When discussing metadata, it is necessary that correspond to specifi c events. For the nature of these events and their to recognize timestamps as an integral instance, an entry in the IE history log, attribution to individual(s). For our part; a timestamp is the record of the index.dat, would correspond to visiting discourse, an event refers to actions that are directly performed by an individual The quest in the analysis of digital evidence is the identifi cation of the on any digital device. Examples of such events leading to the reported incident, the nature of these events and their events are creating a fi le, modifying a fi le, attribution to individual(s). sending an email, logging into a server, visiting a website, downloading a fi le,
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 18 www.csi-india.org etc. Each event can result in creating new to determine the exact nature of the metadata is usually found in digital images digital artifacts, or accessing or modifying events recorded in evidence. if the images were edited. When this existing digital artifacts(s). Typically the When an event creates or modifi es metadata value is present and there are no following are observed when a new event more than one digital artifact, identifying discernible EXIF markers, it could indicate occurs: the metadata that pertain to the event a digitally generated image fi le. 1. On a fi le system, an event can create across these artifacts will elicit the Digital image fi les also require to a new fi le, or access or modify one or relationships that exist between them. be identifi ed based on the device used more aspects of an existing fi le. Therefore, focusing on the appropriate to record or capture the digital image 2. In memory, an event creates a new metadata across the digital artifacts, one fi les and the metadata that allow us to process or modifi es an existing can reconstruct the event(s). Naturally, do that are the EXIF metadata Camera process. it is necessary to determine the classes make and model metadata tags. The EXIF 3. On a log fi le, an event usually creates of metadata from such artifacts that can metadata[4] in the digital image fi les store a new log record. Existing log records provide specifi c answers to the questions information about the digital still camera are preserved, untouched. raised during forensic analysis. Typically, and technical details about how a digital 4. During a network packet capture questions of the type “what” or “where” photograph was captured. Such groupings session, an event captures a new relate to the source of the artifact and not only identify all the cameras used in network packet. Existing network the metadata that identify such sources generating the collection, but they can packets are preserved, untouched. are potential candidates for fi nding the be used to identify the number of digital If a new digital artifact is created answers. The “who” question identifi es images generated by camera of a particular as a result of an event, its occurrence is an individual who is or a system that make and model. These metadata belong refl ected in the metadata that are also is attributed to an artifact. The “when” to the ownership metadata family. created along with the digital artifact. If an question relates to the time-related The MAC timestamps and the EXIF existing artifact is modifi ed as a result of event(s) that aff ected an artifact and the timestamps, where available, belong an event, its occurrence is refl ected in the timestamps in metadata can provide such to the timestamp metadata family and change in values of the metadata linked to answers. The “how” question pertains identify events corresponding to creation, that artifact. Therefore, irrespective of the to describing other aspects pertaining modifi cation and access of the image fi les. type of event, its eff ect can be perceived in to an artifact when an event aff ecting Image dimensions can help one the metadata. the artifact was observed. Therefore, gauge the granularity of digital image fi les The analysis is concerned with metadata that identify such situational and is a useful pre-analysis metric; higher fi nding answers to the questions that information are likely candidates. This is the image dimensions, better the level of relate to what, when, where, how, who and diagrammatically illustrated in Fig. 1. detail in the image fi le. Such metadata and why[3]. Naturally the process of analysis is those such as image fi le size and image driven by methods to fi nd these answers. Metadata & Metadata Families in content type that provide information The most common form of grouping Digital Image Files regarding the features of digital image fi les metadata is timestamps with owner for We identify the digital image metadata at belong to the application metadata family. fi les, username for logs or IP address for their respective metadata families relevant Digital image fi les do not store author network packet traces. The motivation during analysis in Fig. 2. A collection information; rather record the details beyond this grouping is evident since it of digital image fi les can be organized pertaining to devices such as digital still helps one fi nd answers to who and when. according to the image fi le names and cameras, computers and computer-based To determine answers to what, where, and their respective locations on a particular software used in creating or editing these how, the artifacts are individually analyzed source of digital evidence. The metadata images. As a result, the software and with perhaps, keyword fi ltering. However, that allow one to do that belong to the camera devices are identifi ed as source this can be an extended process and may source metadata family. Another metadata and ownership information pertaining to require multiple back-and-forth activities pertaining to this family, viz., ‘software’ namesake metadata families.
Network EXIF Metadata Files Log records Packets The metadata captured by a digital still camera (DSC) is called EXIF, short for EXchangeable Image File format. While EXIF M E T A D A T A stores the technical characteristics about a digital photograph, it does not contain any information about its contents. EXIF contains information generated by a digital camera each time the camera captures Source Ownership Timestamps Application a scene. Most digital photo software can The what? The who? The when? The how? display EXIF metadata to a user, but EXIF The where? The where? is usually not editable. Some examples of Fig. 1: Metadata families per nent to forenic analysis the kind of information recorded in EXIF are as below:
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 19 XMP Metadata O XMP is the new XML-based eXtensible W Metadata Platform developed by Adobe S Digital image file name N in 2001. Adobe worked with the IPTC to O E Camera Make incorporate the old “IPTC headers” into U Location of digital image file R the new XMP framework and in 2005 the R S Camera Model “IPTC Core Schema for XMP” specifi cation C Editing software H was released. XMP is an open-source, E I public standard, making it easier for P developers to adopt the specifi cation in third-party software. XMP metadata can be added to many fi le types, but for graphic images, this is generally stored in JPEG and TIFF fi le formats. A Created Content type T P Metadata & Metadata Families in I Last Modified P Image file size Word Processing Documents M L We identify the word processing E I metadata at their respective metadata Last Accessed Image height S C families relevant during analysis in T Last Saved/Printed A Image width Fig. 3. A collection of word processing A T documents can be organized according to M the image fi le names and their respective Date/Time Original I Image encoding P O locations on a particular source of digital evidence. As discussed earlier, title or S Date/Time Digitized N subject metadata can often throw light on understanding if the document has Fig. 2: Digital image metadata of interest been used as a template in creating the material while leaving the metadata 1. Camera make and model stock photo agencies, and other publishing untouched. ‘Creator’ and ‘Publisher’ 2. Time of capture businesses outside of the news media. metadata help identify some of the 3. ISO speed 4. Flash Exposure duration Document name O 5. Image pixel dimensions W 6. Camera Flash status S Location of document N Document owner 7. GPS coordinates; and so on. O E There are certain other types U Computer name Author/Last author R of metadata that allow users to add R Title/Subject S descriptive information within a digital C Organization H photo or image fi le. Those metadata E I might include the copyright information, Creator/Publisher P a caption, credits, keywords, creation date and location, source information, or special instructions. Two of the most commonly used metadata types for such A descriptive information are IPTC and XMP. Created Content type T P IPTC Metadata I Last Modified P Document file size IPTC-IIM is the standard developed in M L the 1970’s by the International Press E I Telecommunications Council and IIM Last Accessed Total edit time S C stands for Information Interchange Model. T Last Printed A # Pages/slides The IPTC-IIM was initially developed as A T a standard for exchanging information M I between news organizations and has Last Saved keywords P O evolved over time. Around 1994, Adobe S N Version no. Photoshop’s “File Info” form enabled users to insert and edit IPTC metadata in digital image fi les and since it was adopted by Fig. 3: Word processing document metadata of interest
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 20 www.csi-india.org Leveraging personal metadata for From this review, it is evident that metadata are an important part of fi les Desktop Search: The Beagle ++ and they lend a valuable hand during cyber-litigations. Metadata based System, Journal of Web Semantics: search can also be a valuable tool when studying personal computers and Science, Services, and Agents on the such assessments call for an integrated framework to incorporate metadata WWW, Elsevier Science Publications, from multiple diff erent sources as discussed in FIA. ISSN: 1570-8268, Vol. 8(1), pp. 37-54. [7] NISO. (2004). Understanding additional software used in generating metadata from multiple diff erent sources Metadata, NISO Press, http:// the content. Such metadata belong to the as discussed in FIA[8]. While fi ltering based www.niso.org/publications/press/ source metadata family. search and classifi cation are single-stream, UnderstandingMetadata.pdf, ISBN: When dealing with documents, it or single parameter based, metadata can 1-880124-62-9, pp. 1-20. may be necessary to identify the author(s), provide the dynamics we desire. Identifying [8] Raghavan S, Clark A J, and Mohay their affi liations with an organization or metadata based associations that can G (2009). FIA: An Open Forensic company, when and who last modifi ed inform one on the existence of valuable Integration Architecture for Composing the document and so on. The metadata higher-order relationships during analysis. Digital Evidence., Forensics in that allow one to do that belong to the Telecommunications, Information References ownership metadata family. and Multimedia, Lecture Notes of the [1] Buchholz F and Spaff ord E H The MAC timestamps and the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social (2004). On the Role of File system document timestamps, where available, Informatics and Telecommunications metadata in Digital Forensics, Digital belong to the timestamp metadata family Engineering, 2009, Volume 8(1), pp. Investigations, 1(1), pp. 298-309. and identify events corresponding to [2] Casey E (2011). Digital Evidence and 83-94, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642- creation, modifi cation and access of the Computer Crime: Forensic Science, 02312-5_10 word processing documents. Computers and the Internet, Academy [9] Raghavan S, and Raghavan Metadata such as number of pages, Press Publications 3/e, ISBN 978-0-12- S V, (2009). Digital Evidence slides etc., retain some content context. 374268. Composition in Fraud Detection, ‘keywords’ is another metadata, if [3] Dyreson C E & Snodgrass R T, Lecture Notes of the Institute for available, which could potentially provide (1993). Timestamps semantics and Computer Sciences, Social Informatics alternate keywords to examiners while representation, Journal of Information and Telecommunications Engineering, exploring related documents or other Systems, Vol. 18(3), pp. 143-166. 2010, Volume 31(1),1-8, DOI: digital artifacts from one or more sources [4] EXIF Specifi cation Document 10.1007/978-3-642-11534-9_1 of digital evidence. Such metadata that (2002), JEITA CP-3451, Standard [10] The Sedona Conference Working provide information regarding the features of Japan and Information Technology Group, The Sedona Principles: Best of word processing documents belong to Association, Exif Version 2.2, http:// Practices Recommendations & the application metadata family. www.exif.org/Exif2-2.PDF Principles for Addressing Electronic Conclusions [5] Metadata Working Group Document Production (Second From this review, it is evident that metadata (2010), Guidelines for Handling Edition) (2007)., http://www. are an important part of fi les and they lend Metadata, Version 2.0, http://www. thesedonaconference.org/content/ a valuable hand during cyber-litigations. metadataworkinggroup.org/pdf/ miscFiles/TSC_PRINCP_2nd_ Metadata based search can also be a mwg_guidance.pdf ed_607.pdf valuable tool when studying personal [6] Minack E, Paiu R, Costache S, computers[6] and such assessments call Demartini ., Gaugaz J, Ioannou E, n for an integrated framework to incorporate Chirita P-A, and Nejdl W, (2010),
Sriram Raghavan is a Security and Forensic Consultant with Secure Cyber Space http://www.securecyberspace.org from where he consults on many issues in the areas of Cyber Security and Digital Forensics, with offi ces both in India and Australia. Sriram has been working in the area of digital forensics for over 7 years and specializes in the determinations of associations among digital evidence for the purposes of evidence compositions and event reconstruction. Sriram Raghavan has also been a part of vibrant IT industry since 2006 in various roles. Sriram can be reached at [email protected] or through his organization’s website www.securecyberspace.org.
S V Raghavan is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) and holds an adjunct professorship at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. Prof. Raghavan is a well-known author of Multimedia and Networked Systems and fondly known as Father of Educational and Research Network (ERNet) in India. Prof. Raghavan has recently architected India’s National Knowledge Network (NKN) which connects over 1500 research and educational institutions all over India. Prof. Raghavan is currently the Scientifi c Secretary in the Offi ce of the Principal Scientifi c Advisor to the Govt. of India. Prof. Raghavan can be reached at [email protected]. About the Authors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 21 Prerna Lal Article Lecturer in Information Management, International Management Institute, New Delhi
Social Media and Educational Institutions - Evolutionary Dynamics
Educational institutions such as way engagement amenability has made is a vital new part of the educational Universities, colleges, research and communication and interaction much process [5, 8]. development institutions, schools have quicker than ever before[1,2,6]. Anthropological professors or always needed to keep communication Social media is the apparently researchers involved in fi eld work can lines open with their key constituents changing nature of learners’ relationships quickly upload videos and post photos and shareholders and other stakeholders with information and knowledge. Indeed, of initial fi ndings of new archaeological such as students, faculty/academics, it could be argued that social media digs and preliminary investigation fi eld government and/or private funders support forms of knowledge consumption expeditions on commonly accessed and promoters. Engagement with these and knowledge construction that are very networks. Faculty and researchers of constituents and especially students is the diff erent to the epistemological principles medical colleges involved in government key to operational running and success of of formal education and individualized -funded research projects and programs any educational institution. Historically, instruction[7]. Social media and all its can confabulate regularly via workgroups as far as students were concerned, extended platforms and technologies on Facebook or Google + or other online administrators, educators, teachers and have become integral to the lives of collaboration workgroups and boards. professors have addressed queries, issues students. The millennial generation cohort Literature professors can quickly and doubts of students face-to-face is absolutely comfortable with all aspects share newest and interesting article links and almost always in person or through of technology usage in their personal thru Twitter or posts and updates of their physically stationed bulletin boards on lives and slowly expecting academics current commentaries and essays through campuses. However, over time and with and educators to adopt social media for institution blogs. Astronomy and space availability and adoption of prevalent academic use and thereby enable a more sciences professors can group source technologies, administrators and faculty dynamic educative environment. Even as the learnings of the vast observational have adjusted to communicating with administrators are still grappling with the fi eld of astronomy and space through students through email and also through essence and frameworks of adopting a external experts and practitioners via outreach programs to parents, funders/ digital strategy for their institutions and online platforms to ensure broad-based promoters, district and area politicians, channelize the opportunities that exist for and enriching learning for students. education policy makers and mandarins, digital learning through such social media Urgent announcements and up-to-date alumni networks. loops and webs, blogging, online forums information related to security updates, But it is the recent advent, rapid and Twitter accounts have been embraced institution closures, and weather- proliferation and adoption of ubiquitous by educators, teachers, professors and related issues can be quickly made on computing – and primarily by students- academicians as well in recent years. the institution’s Twitter account before in the form of inexpensive laptops, One of the biggest benefi ts of breakdown of full communication systems smartphones, tablets, portable and other social media and social networks is the and networks. hand-held devices coupled with near instantaneous sharing and dissemination Educational institutions are still ubiquitous Web connectivity that has of information. The possibilities and in the initial and/or nascent stages of changed the dynamics of interaction and potentialities for information sharing adoption of social media platforms and engagement. This has been accelerated and collaboration and groupsourcing technologies. The approaches to introduce even further with the emergence of social and crowdsourcing are plenty. Educators social media in academics and learning media and allied social network-centered can take advantage of trusted networks in classrooms and as a communication/ platforms in recent years. Wikis, Weblogs, to engage students and help them learn PR tool or for outreach programs are still social bookmarking, RSS feeds, social important skills and concepts. They can being shaped with very few best practices networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, post relevant documents, links to books really available for pointers and most MySpace), podcasts, e-portfolios, del.icio. or articles on student networks which will institutions are learning-as-they-go. The us, YouTube, Skype, fl ickr, online offi ce and enhance pupil interest in the subject and co-ordination and coalescing of such tagging other networks and applications the likelihood that they will view and trust activities and initiatives and the uniformity with one-to-one, one-to-many and multi- that material. That type of collaboration in approach will be the key to maintaining and enhancing an institution’s reputation. The millennial generation cohort is absolutely comfortable with all aspects of New technologies are also technology usage in their personal lives and slowly expecting academics and aff ecting other areas of administration educators to adopt social media for academic use and thereby enable a more of educational institutions. Social- dynamic educative environment. networking tools are helping to build connections with alumni and support
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 22 www.csi-india.org Experimental Investigation. Journal Use of social media tools, platforms, networks and services in education will of Computer Information Systems, be even more ubiquitous in the future. 44(4), 41-48. [2] Fåhræus, E R (2004). Distance career service activities. These tools among students into the policy team Education Students Moving Towards can help in expanding the reach and to ensure commonality of purpose Collaborative Learning - A Field Study success of recruiting through automated, and help frame institution social of Australian Distance Education self-service programmes, which reduce media objectives. Students and Systems. Educational administrative requirements, streamline • Ensure deployment of full-time staff Technology & Society, 7 (2), 129-140. course registration and enhance academic including students and academicians [3] Glen, M (2008). The Future of life [3]. to manage institution–owned and Higher Education: How Technology Without a doubt, there will be managed social media properties will Shape Learning; A Report from challenges to implementing these including Websites, blogs, videos the Economist Intelligence Unit. New technologies in the classroom. Even the and maintain current and up-to-date Media Consortium. Retrieved from most fundamental, non-tech lessons have nature of information feeds. Empower http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Future-of- their hiccups[4].The challenge essentially in-house team to also co-ordinate Higher-Ed-(NMC).pdf is to set up frameworks and policy with external Web administrators, [4] Klopfer, E Osterweil, S, Groff , J, and guidelines which help govern the use and architects and hosting providers Haas, J (2009). Using technology on-the-go adoption of social media. Tech to ensure a seamless and intuitive of in the classroom today: The savvy teachers and professors and those technological interface and instructional power of digital game pioneers in use of social media tools should redundancy and glitch-free social social networking simulations. The be co-opted as part of such policy making media experience. Education Arcade. teams so that constructive and workable • Discussion pages in Facebook pages, [5] Moran, Mike, Jeff Seaman, Hester strategies are devised. Administrators urls links and hash tags on Twitter, Tinti-Kane,(2011). Blogs, Wikis, will need to gauge how to use social videos and video blogs on YouTube Podcasts and Facebook: How Today’s media eff ectively, how to incorporate the need to have a consistency in Higher Education Faculty Use Social plethora of social media tools for learning approach so as to not deviate from Media. Pearson learning Solutions and/or craft or tailor education services the known “reputational character” and Babson Survey Research Group. and products and how to use social media of the educational institution. Retrieved from http://fi les.eric. platforms for increasing and expanding • Leverage the ubiquity of social media ed.gov/fulltext/ED535130.pdf professional learning networks and out- to position public relations and [6] Munguatosha, G M, Muyinda, P of-classroom activities. outreach programs to all stakeholders B and Lubega, J T (2011). A social of the educational institution. networked learning adoption model A Toolkit for Social Media Adoption for higher education institutions in Use of social media tools, platforms, • Administrators and/or education developing countries, On the Horizon: networks and services in education will institution heads/regents/principals Emerald Journal, ISSN: 1074-8121, be even more ubiquitous in the future. It should prepare a broad framework Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 307-320. would behoove educators, administrators, and outline policy guidelines for an [7] Selwyn, N (2011). Social media in educational institutions heads and education institution’s social media higher education. The Europa World academicians to come to terms and up-to- adoption strategy. of Learning - 62nd edition, London, speed with these new-age and necessarily • The framework should be fl exible Routledge. Retrieved from http:// 21st century skills and capabilities to to account for quick-changing www.educationarena.com/pdf/ prepare students so that they are as technologies, emergence of new sample/sample-essay-selwyn.pdf primed to be reliable and well-attuned platforms and tools to leverage the [8] West, Darrell M (2012), How Blogs, global citizens of tomorrow. potential and reach of social media. Social Media, and Video Games • Administrators should co-opt References Improve Education. Retrieved from educators, teachers and professors [1] Douglas, D E and Van Der Vyver, G http://www.brookings.edu/research/ conversant with prevalent (2004). Eff ectiveness of E-Learning papers/2012/04/24-education- technologies and tools and also Course Materials for Learning technology-west#_ednref2 include the tech-savvy and whizzes Database Management Systems: An n
Prerna Lal is a lecturer in Information Management at International Management Institute, New Delhi and a published writer. She is an engineer with an MBA degree (IIT-Roorkee). She is a SAP-certified consultant and has ITIL® V3 Foundation-level certificate in IT Service Management. She has more than 12 years of experience in academics and research with areas of interest being Data Warehousing and Data Mining, Business Analytics, Management Information System, Software Project Management, IT Service Management, Cyber Law, and Cloud Computing. She can be contacted at [email protected]. About the Author
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 23 Hemant Kumar Saini* and Anurag Jagetiya** Article *M. Tech Scholar, Department of Computer Science, RTU, Kota **Assistant Professor, at MLV Government Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara (Rajasthan)
Card Skimming A Major Threat to E-Commerce
Today in the era of e-commerce everyone wants to be safe from the burden of handling the cash money. And, discovery of plastic money i.e. credit/ debit cards has solved this problem to a great extent. But, unfortunately with the facility of plastic money, the risk of skimming the cards details is also increased. Generally, people unknowingly provide their cards to sales persons at petrol pumps , shopping malls, etc to pay their invoice but they are unaware about the card swapper used by merchant i.e. whether it is faithful swap machine or not. And, it is diffi cult to be assured that the card details will not be Fig. 1: ATM with (right) and without (le ) skimming device stored or stolen by adversaries. Mostly, skimmers use the devices at the shopping malls, petrol pumps and details has been installed through that look exactly like original and ATMs in a hurry without even checking the radio frequency identifi cation sometimes they use easily available their surroundings. As shown in Fig. 2, technology. So these scanners decode software of open source market. Although the skimmer attaches the camera near the details of card and copy them into skimming techniques are increasing the light diff user area, speaker area and blank magnetic strips cards which are rapidly, the methods applied in them are the keyboard and this wireless sensing also available online. If such tools are quite common. Hence, it is not much camera captures the PIN numbers easily available online then we need diffi cult to safe ourselves from such types and stores in a small memory. These to have a protection from scanning the of attacks. But the permanent solution days many of the magnetic readers like card. For such attacks some of the anti to the problem is still not achieved. Wincor ATM parts wincor anti fraud device skimming techniques are used but they Therefore, it’s better to be careful and take antiskimmer 2000 2000xe are easily don’t prove to be much successful and care of our card properly to protect from available online which store the code. As the research has been still continuing. and when the consumer makes payment such attacks and fi nancial loss. Anti-Skimming by fl ipping the card the vulnerability A card protection kit (CPK) has been Card Skimming starts. As the card has magnetic strip designed by HCL Infosystems. This It is evident that the cards are produced in which all the confi dential account by installing the customer details into its magnetic strip by some software based machine. This is the main idea that the skimmers tried to work on it. They are also trying to make copies of such cards. And, for that they try many techniques to achieve magnetic strip data and PIN. As shown in Fig. 1, they install faceplates at many places to read the card details before it enters into original slot so they can steal the card data. And PIN number can be observed by many types of cameras or sensors. In this way skimmers easily capture the data and produce replica of cards and try them at diff erent locations. Protection from Skimming It is hard to prevent from such attacks but still some preventive measures have Fig. 2: Card Skimming Process by Wireless been taken to keep the data of magnetic Sensor [Source: h p://i.telegraph.co.uk/mul media/archive/00659/news-graphics-2008-_659253a.gif ] stripe safe. Mostly people use their cards
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 24 www.csi-india.org Therefore, considering all the above mentioned security potentials one can decide a good anti-skimmer which will work strongly to thwart against the E-frauds. In Jan 10, 2012, US authorities have arrested a man in major ATM skimming Fig. 3: Key facts for Security [Source: h ps://tmdsecurity.com/] fraud that stole at least $i.5 million from 40 HSBC cash machines in and around New York. Hence, in case of ATM technology acts as a jammer and prevents determine the penetration power of anti skimming, it is better to say that the illegal devices from scanning the card’s skimming devices means it detects the protection is better than cure. Customer magnetic data. It disrupts the fraudulent numbers of jammers so that they could need to be aware while using their cards at reader by emitting signals continuously. It fi nd the way to break that and passes over ATM situated in remote site where a few is known that the card’s magnetic strip has the skimming device. people access them. It is easy for thieves been fi lled by the radio frequency signals So the newly Europay, Mastercard to install skimmers there in comparison and cards are being read by the MCRW & Visa (EMV) chip technology has to an ATM located at densely populated (Magnetic Card Reader/Writer) circuit in removed the above discussed skimming area. Customer must observe that the card the ATM. This CPK is triggered by another procedures. This is the most intelligent inserting portion is properly sticking to the techniques based upon sensors known as way to secure our electronic payments. ATM or not. In case of providing your card surface detection kit (SDK). SDK is used Hence to overcome from the above to sales person while shopping, you must to detect the foreign devices which are discussed weakness it is recommended to be sure that they are not taking away your attached over or near the ATM card entry rely on some security potentials which will card for a few minutes. Last but not least, slot for skimming purposes. It triggers a be discussed in next below section. avoid a very common mistake of sharing silent alarm at surveillance center when Special Facts of Anti Skimming your passwords. Follow the standard monitor such activities. practice of using ATM one by one. In case So when both the above mentioned Solution of any doubt, it is recommended to call the technology works together in an intelligent Various key facts as indicated in Fig. 3 are helpdesk. Don’t try by yourself to extract way to protect from today’s major problem there which are proven for the security the skimmer because thieves might of card skimming. purposes. Some are following: be hovering around. They may either • Maximum Security- It validates the Exploitation of Weakness in escape or harm you to protect their costly solution against the Digital, Analog skimmer. So now onwards, be smart when Magnetic Strip and Stereo techniques to provide the Since the attackers are always inventing you use your plastic cards at anyplace. optimum protection. the new techniques to breach the security • Multi-Vendor- Since the hardware References measures which exploits the weakness in has been assembled from diff erent [1] ATM Card Skimming & PIN Capturing- present technology. Mostly, they decide vendors hence it must adapt the https://www.commbank.com.au/ on three technique viz. Digital, Analog and multi vendor environment to deliver a personal/apply-online/download- Stereo to capture the data of card. maximum protection. printed-forms/ATM_awareness_guide. Digital-It is a traditional way to copy • Confi dence-Patent solutions pdf the data of magnetic strip while the card should be used with the self service [2] RFID: Technology and Applications passes over the skimming device. It can deployers to secure globally. http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sri/talks/rfi d- be easily done when no jamming device 05.pdf • Flexibility-It must instantly is installed to disrupt the skimming device [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio- responsive so that fi nd the solution from copying the data. frequency_identifi cation from its directory for the new threat Analog-It is the most current [4] Antiskimming solutions-http:// that has been evolved. technique which concludes almost 65% of www.hclmea.com/mea-security- • Real Time Information- It must the cases of such attacks. In this the sound antiskimming.html triggers the alerts as it gets waves are recorded for the transactions [5] Magnetic Decoding-http://www. compromised. It is always on service and then decode it to retrieve the card data. epanorama.net/index.php which can also be attacked to stop [6] Anti skimming technology https:// Stereo-It is the new threat which then also it generates the alarms. tmdsecurity.com/ n
Mr. Hemant Kumar Saini is a Red hat Certifi ed Engineer. He is pursuing M. Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from Rajasthan Technical University, Kota. He has completed his B. Tech in Information Technology from MLV Government Textile & Engineering College. He is having 2 years of industrial experience and one year of academic experience. His research interests are Computer Network and Cyber Security. E-mail: hemantrhce@rediff mail.com
Mr. Anurag Jagetiya is an Assistant Professor at MLV Government Textile & Engineering College, Bhilwara (Rajasthan). He is pursuing M.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from NITTTR, Chandigarh. He is having 7 years of academic experience. His research interests are Computer Network and Cyber Security. E-mail: [email protected] About the Authors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 25 Baisa L Gunjal* and Dr. Suresh N Mali** Article *Amrutvahini College of Engineering Sangamner, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra **Principal, Sinhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Narhe, Pune
Role of Optimization Techniques in Digital Image Watermarking
The aim of this article is to present of iterations are completed. The overall for optimal feature subset based on three optimization techniques namely, GA process is shown in Fig. 2. criteria specifi ed as per requirement genetic algorithm (GA), particle of the application. The basis idea of Generate random swarm optimization (PSO) and ant chromosome in population PSO framework is effi cient exchange of colony optimization (ACO). The article information about global and local best mainly focuses how these optimization values. The PSO algorithms can be defi ned techniques can be effi ciently used for Do Fitness evaluation with respect to topological neighborhood optimizing values of quality parameters either with global neighborhood or with of digital image watermarking (DIO). local neighborhood. From the behavior of Yes The article also includes guidelines Termination birds or fi sh the system can be modeled for achieving optimization using Condition met? Output to give fi tness function. Using global ‘multiobjective optimization using genetic neighborhood each particle move towards algorithm’ using ‘Genetic Algorithm and No its best previous position and towards Direct Search Toolbox’ of Matlab. Parent selection for best particle in the swarm. According to reproduction local variant, each particle moves towards Genetic Algorithms best previous position and towards best GA algorithms were fi rst developed particle in its restricted neighborhood. The by John Holland in 1970 and now they Perform Crossover details of PSO based system can be found are widely used to solve problems in ref[3]. in various scientifi c and engineering Perform Mutation applications. In general GA starts with Ant Colony Optimization randomly selected population called fi rst ACO was introduced by Dorigo to solve generation. Each individual in population hard optimization problems. Ants nest is is called chromosome and all possible Fig. 2: Generalized GA process surrounded randomly by ants to fi nd food chromosomes in list constitute population. source. When an ant fi nds food source, it Limitation of GA is slow execution speed 1001100111 1000011100 Sample carries some food to the nest. 0110010000 0111100011 Chromosomes but it searches optimized solution in large 1000000001 0011001100 in population space. Details of GA based system can be [1] 1111100000 1100110011 found in ref . Parent Children Particle Swarm Optimization 0000000101 0000000010 Example PSO was fi rst proposed by Kennedy and 1111111010 1111111101 Crossover Ant Food Eberhart in 1995. Actually, PSO is based Nest source Parent Children on idea of collaborative behavior and (a) 0000000000 0001000100 Example swarming in biological population inspired 1111111111 1110111011 Mutation by social behavior of fl ocking birds or Fig. 1: Example of sample chromosomes, schooling fi sh as shown in Fig. 3. crossover and muta on in gene c algorithm
Ant Food In GA fi tness/objective/cost Nest source function is used to evaluate quality of (b) each chromosome and it measures Fig. 4: Ant colony System: a) Ants taking random goodness of candidate solution. Next path ini ally b)Ant following lower shorter path generation will be generated from some along pheromone trail at decision points. chromosomes where fi tness values are Fig. 3: Natural behavior of fl ying birds and high. GA basically uses initial population, swarms While returning from food source selection, crossover and mutation. to nest, ant deposits chemical substance Example of sample chromosomes, called pheromone trail. Other ants follow Computation in PSO is based crossover and mutation in genetic same path with the help of smell of on population(swarm) of processing algorithm is shown in Fig. 1. Reproduction, pheromone trail. Thus, ants fi nd optimal element called particles in which each crossover, mutation are three basic path between nest and food source. By particle represent candidate solution. operators used repeatedly until either modeling real ant colony system, fi tness PSO eff ectively explore solution space predefi ned criteria is satisfi ed or number function can be found that can be used
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 26 www.csi-india.org for optimizing parameters of underlying Type fi tness function: simple_ Closing Remark application. When the ants come to multiobjective and set lower and upper Optimization techniques are widely used the decision point, initially they choose bounds. in business, science and engineering random path as shown in Fig. 4a. Assuming Step 4: In ‘options’ specify example ranging from all types of numerical and that ant walk with constant speed, ant number of generations: 5 and under ‘plot’ combinatorial optimization problems, taking lower shorter path will reach earlier select ‘pareto front’. trajectory planning in robotics, to other end towards food source. Now, classifi cations in data mining, fi lter as shown in Fig. 4 b, pheromone trail Step 5: Now run optimizer. Optimization designing in signal processing, routing shown by dashed lines deposited in lower process will be viewed and’ pareto front’ in computer networking up to marketing path will be more. Other ants will follow show optimization result as shown in strategies. This article gives overview same shorter path. Details of ACO based Fig. 6. More details can be studied with of three optimization techniques: GA, [5] system can be found in ref[4]. ref . PSO and ACO. It also explores idea Achieving Multiobjective with practical guidelines, how it can be effi ciently used for digital image Optimization Using Genetic watermarking and its applications. Algorithm’ In Matlab, GA can be executed either Acknowledgements using ‘Genetic or Evolutionary Algorithm We are also thankful to ‘Amrutvahini Toolbox’ or Genetic Algorithm and Direct College of Engineering (AVCOE), Search Toolbox’. Following is sample Sangamner, A’nagar’, ‘Sinhgad Institute example of implementation of multiple of Technology and Science (SITS), objectives using ‘Genetic Algorithm and Narhe, Pune’, ‘Padmashree Dr. D.Y. Patil Direct Search Toolbox’ of Matlab. Institute of Engineering and Technology Fig. 6: Output of mul objec ve func on in (DYPIET), Pune’ and ‘Board of Colleges Step 1: Open Matlab and create and gene c algorithm and University Development(BCUD), type following code in fi le ‘simple_ University of Pune' for technical support multiobjective.m’. Optimization of Digital Image throughout this research work. function y = simple_multiobjective(x) Watermarking Techniques References y(1) = (x+2)^2 - 50; Digital Image watermarking provides [1] K Ramanjaneyulu, K Rajarajeswari, y(2) = (x-2)^2 + 20; copyright protection to digital images “ Wavelet based obvious image by hiding logos or rightful information to watermarking scheme using genetic Step2. In Matlab command window type algorithm”,IET Image Processing, Vol 6, ‘optimtool’. This will open optimization declare ownership of digital images. DIO Issue 4, 2012, pp: 364-373. toolbox. can be viewed as optimization problem. [2] M Monemizadeh, S A Seyedin, “ Effi cient watermarking has various quality Optimal DWT-DCT Domain Image requirements. Peak signal to noise ratio Watermarking Using Multiobjective (PSNR) and normalized cross correlation Evolutionary Algorithms”, World Congress on Computer Science (NCC) are two important measures. and Information Engineering, 2009, The perceived quality of watermarked pp:259-263. image is measured by PSNR, while NCC [3] Sivavenkateswara Rao V, Rajendra S measures similarity of original watermark Shekhawat, V K Srivastava, “ DWT- and extracted watermark from attacked DCT-SVD Based Digital Image Watermarking Scheme Using Particle image. Thus, both PSNR and NCC should Swarm Optimization”, IEEE Students be as large as possible for good quality Conference on Electrical, Electronics watermarking technique. But, these and Computer Science, 2012, parameters are confl icting each other. pp:239-244 If we try to increase PSNR, then NCC [4] Khaled Loukhaoukha, “Image Watermarking Algorithm Based on get decreased, while increasing NCC Multiobjective Ant Colony Optimization decreases PSNR. Hence, optimization and Singular Value Decomposition techniques are applied to achieve in Wavelet Domain”, Journal of optimized values of both PSNR and NCC. Optimization, Vol 2013, Article ID921270, For example, using GA based optimization pp:.1-10 [5] The MathWorks, Inc., Getting Started fi tness function can be given as, with MATLAB. Fitness function= PSNR+ 100* NCC. http://www.mathworks.com/access/ Similarly, fi tness function can be helpdesk/help/techdoc/learn_matlab/ Fig. 5: Op miza on process in gene c obtained from PSO or ACO to achieve learn_matlab.shtml algorithm optimized quality parameters in DIO [6] Rafel C Gonzalez, Richard E Woods, Steven L Eddins, “Digital Image Processing techniques. Step 3: Now select solver: ‘Multiobjective using Matlab”, 2008, Fourth Impression, optimization using Genetic Algorithm’. Pearson Education. n
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 27 Baisa L. Gunjal is pursuing PhD in University of Pune and working in Amrutvahini College of Engineering Sangamner, A’nagar, MS, India. She has 15 years teaching experience and having more than 15 International journals and conference publications including IEEE Computer society, ACM etc. She is recipient of ‘Lady Engineer Award:2012from ‘Institution of Engineers’ and ‘Best Teacher Award-2013’ from University of Pune, MS, India.Her areas of interest are image processing ,computer networking and databases.
Dr. Suresh N. Mali has completed his PhD and presently working as principal, Sinhgad Institute of Technology and Science, Narhe, Pune, India. He has written three technical books and published more than thirty papers in many reputed national and international journals and conferences including ACM journal, CSIC etc. He is active member of ‘Board of Studies’ for Computer Engineering in various universities in MS, India. He has also worked as member of ‘Local Inquiry Committee’ on behalf of university of Pune, India. He is member of IEEE, life member of ISTE and his research interests are information security, data hiding, signal processing, digital multimedia communications and Steganography. About the Authors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 28 www.csi-india.org Mr. K V N Rajesh Article Senior Assistant Professor, Department of Information Technology, Vignan’s Institute of Information Technology, Visakhapatnam
BITCOIN – An Overview of the Popular Digital Cryptocurrency Introduction network. It is a fl at currency that is not Software wallet:- These wallets are People have been exchanging goods and exchangeable for gold or other commodity. installed in on the client computer. They services since times immemorial. This Bitcoins are being accepted as payment at give complete control over the wallet. initially started out as in the form of Barter online merchant sites like WordPress.com, Mobile wallet:- These wallets are installed without any medium of exchange such as The Pirate Bay, Reddit, etc. It was initially in mobile phones. All the alerts related to money and hence was non-monetary. But launched in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, a transactions are sent directly to mobile this system had set its set of limitations mysterious developer. His real identity is phones. with the main one being the need of unknown till date. His idea of using Bitcoin coincidence of wants between the buyer protocol made it possible to replace Web wallet:- It provides an online wallet and the seller. With the advancement centralized control of money transmission service to store bitcoins. of human civilization and the organized by a large peer-to-peer network. The main Blockchain:- It is a shared public trade, a medium of exchange was needed. aim of Bitcoin is to fi nd an alternative for transaction log which holds information This led to the emergence of money. This existing money transmission systems about all transactions made on which started out in the form of commodity implemented by large organizations such the entire Bitcoin network relies. The money where the medium of exchange as banks and credit card companies by a blockchain is a global record of all itself also carried some intrinsic value. large decentralized peer-to-peer network confi rmed transactions for every Bitcoin There is a history of various objects like where a node can verify each other’s work transaction. The integrity and the shells, barley, alcohol, and various metals and can ensure that no problem occurs. chronological order of the blockchain are like copper, silver, gold being used as Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency where the enforced with cryptography. commodity money. Over the time, the creation and transfer of Bitcoins is based Block:- It is an individual unit of a standard coins made of diff erent metals on open-source cryptographic protocol. blockchain. In order to guarantee integrity, emerged. Metal coins acted as a bridge A user can own or transact in Bitcoin by each block contains the hash of the between the commodity money and fi at either running a program that implements previous block and as many unconfi rmed money. Fiat money is any money decreed Bitcoin protocol on their computer or by (not embedded in previous blocks) by government law as a legal tender creating a account on a website that runs transactions as can be found in the and the value of which is determined Bitcoin client for its user. A user should network. by the free markets. The next step was own an e-wallet to save Bitcoins. The the emergence of paper money which Bitcoin user is responsible to take backup Transaction:- It is a transfer of value was in the form of bank notes, credit of wallet and keep it secure. between Bitcoin addresses that gets notes, promissory notes and fi nally the included in the blockchain and broadcast modern currency as we see today in the Basic Terminology in Bitcoin by the network. A digital signature is form of Rupees, Dollars, Euros, etc. This Bitcoin Address:-It is a string generated generated by private keys of owners of the anyhow did not stop there. The invention by Bitcoin client having a length of 27- input addresses which is included along and commonplace use of computers, 34 alphanumeric characters. To increase with transaction. These signatures provide computer networks and communication privacy, a user can create more than one additional security to transaction as they devices led to the emergence of electronic address (i.e. a separate address for each cannot be changed once issued. money. Digital currency is an example of transaction) and can use publicly to Obtaining Bitcoins electronic money which acts an alternative receive payments everywhere. To interact on the Bitcoin network, the currency which is not necessarily backed E-Wallet:-It is a computer fi le which can users fi rst need to download the free by any government currency or central be used to store digital cash and can and open-source Bitcoin software. Once bank. Cryptocurrency is a type of digital be used to pay for transactions on the connected to the network, there are three currency that depends on cryptography internet. A unique address is associated ways to obtain Bitcoins. and peer-to-peer networking. The subject with each wallet and can be used to 1. A Bitcoin can be obtained by of this article is the BITCOIN which is a send Bitcoins between wallets. These exchanging with conventional money Cryptocurrency that has received much addresses are same as email addresses (e.g., dollars, yen, and euros) with fee media attention over the past one year. that are used to send emails. There are on an online exchange ranging from Bitcoin services that hold Bitcoin in an E-Wallet 0.5% for small transactions down to Bitcoin is a virtual currency that is digital, and some of them are Btcip, Justcoin, 0.2% for large transcation.The price decentralized and partially anonymous in LocalBitcoins, Blockchain. There are three of Bitcoin relative to other currencies nature. It is not backed by any government types of E-wallets and they are: is determined by supply and demand. or other legal entity and can be generated • Software wallet 2. A Bitcoin can obtained in exchange through complex computer software • Mobile wallet for sale of goods and services. systems with solutions shared on a • Web wallets 3. A Bitcoin can be generated by process
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 29 called mining which involves solving by its supply and demand. There are a Advatanges of Bitcoins of complex mathematical problems number of exchanges in which Bitcoins Speed of transaction:- By the virtue by applying user’s computing power. are traded. The largest among them is it being a Digital currency, it can be The rate of generation of a Bitcoin the Tokyo based MtGox. As at the time transferred instantaneously. by an user is directly proportional to of writing this article in Jan-2014, each No central Authority:- Due to its distributed amount of computer processing that Bitcoin is worth $930. It hit an all time high architecture, it is a freely traded currency can be applied. of $1,249 per Bitcoin on 29-Nov-2013. with no control by any authority. It is thus All the Bitcoins obtained after Legality of Bitcoin less prone to the chance of manipulation implementing above mentioned process This still is a grey area since lawmakers for benefi t by the controlling authority as are stored in E-Wallets. around the world need to come to grips possible in case of Fiat currency. Currently, about 12 million Bitcoins with cryptocurrencies and understand Privacy and Security:- Due to its are in circulation. However, the total how they fi t into existing frameworks. cryptographic nature, it allows for number of Bitcoins that can be generated The main concerns and unanswered anonymous transactions and thus provides is arbitrarily capped at 21 million coins, questions with respect to Bitcoins is its better privacy and security to its user. which is predicted to be reached in 2140. ability to be used anonymously and its Defl ationary Nature:- Due to the built-in Bitcoin and Security potential instrument for money laundering and other illegal activities. As on date of scarcity and known amount of bitcoins and All the transactions implemented between writing this article, it could be said that a cap on maximum amount of Bitcoins, it the users are not linked to anyone. User the offi cial position of US with respect to is defl ationary in nature and thus attempts can send and receive amount by using Bitcoin is not yet fully clear but evolving. to preserve its purchasing power. addresses which cannot be known by a Few US offi cials have even recognized third-party. Addresses can be created using Low Transaction Fees:- Transaction fees that many Virtual currency systems off er Bitcoin clients or ‘wallets’. The sender uses are low and hence makes it suitable for legitimate fi nancial services. his or her private key to assign payments micropayments. It is the similar case in other to receiver’s public key or address. All developed countries like Australia, Conclusion Bitcoin addresses and associated private European Union, United Kingdom, Canada With the omnipresence of computers and keys are stored in encrypted wallet data where Bitcoins are not considered illegal communication devices and increased fi les typically backed up offl ine for security. but some of the respective authorities use of online transactions, the digital and The new Bitcoin storage service off ering have issued warnings to consumers about cryptocurrency like Bitcoins defi nitely insurance in UK, named Elliptic Vault, the risks that could be associated with have a future. Whether Bitcoin will sustain uses "deep cold storage" techniques to these virtual currencies. and succeed or not, only time will tell, but secure the digital currency. There are In India, the Reserve Bank of India the concept behind the Cryptocurrency multiple copies, protected by layers of cautioned investors to be wary of using and Bitcoins will surely evolve as a more cryptographic and physical security. The virtual currency because of the associated universally acceptable medium of exchange copies are accessible only via a quorum of security, fi nancial and legal risk, though it in one form or another in the times to come. Elliptic's directors. necessarily has not been deemed as illegal. References Exchange of Bitcoins Bitcoin has been explicitly banned in [1] Nakamoto, S (2008) Bitcoin : A Peer-to- Bitcoin is not tied to any actual currency Thailand. China has has banned fi nancial Peer Electronic Cash System. like Dollar or Euro. Its value is determined institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions. [2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Introduction n
Mr. K V N Rajesh has obtained his B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in 2005. He obtained his M.Tech in Computer Science and Technology from Andhra University in 2010. He is working as senior assistant professor in department of information technology at Vignan’s institute of information technology, Visakhapatnam since 2005 and is a member of CSI. His research interests include Business Intelligence, Location Intelligence and Big Data and he has published papers in the respective areas. He can be reached at [email protected]. About the Author
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 30 www.csi-india.org Practitioner Dr. K. Valarmathi Workbench Professor in Panimalar Engineering College Programming.Tips () » How to Connect PHP into MYSQL Database? Introduction to MYSQL varchar(30),coursefees int(10),courseduration $courseduration=$_POST['courseduration']; MySQL is a database system used on the web varchar(30)); $con=@mysql_connect("localhost","root","ro MySQL is a database system that runs on a ot")or die (mysql-error()); server MySQL is ideal for both small and large Step6: Move to the following location and type echo "connected to database"; applications MySQL is very fast, reliable, and form.html $db=@mysql_select_db("course",$con)or easy to use MySQL supports standard SQL die(mysql_error()); MySQL compiles on a number of platforms cd /var/www/form.html echo "selected database"; MySQL is free to download and use MySQL is $str="insert into courses form.html developed, distributed, and supported by Oracle values('$studentname',$courseid, Corporation MySQL is named after co-founder '$coursename',$coursefees,$courseduration)";
Monty Widenius's daughter: (Maria- My SQL) $res=@mysql_query($str) orCSI Communications | March 2014 | 31 Practitioner Umesh P and Silpa Bhaskaran Workbench Department of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Kerala Programming.Learn("R") » File Input and Output – Part II
In the previous issue we discussed some commonly used fi le > inp1 <- read.table("new.txt", header=T) input and output commands in R. Now we shall look at the specifi c commands used for reading and writing text fi les and > inp1 spreadsheets which are the major fi le types used by R users. Name Age Weight 1 Raj 12 30 Reading Text Files 2 Seena 24 47 read.table() reads a text fi le which contains data in tabular form 3 Rekha 5 23 or dataframe type. 4 Priya 60 65 5 Meena 30 62 For example consider the dataset from the fi le sampledadataframe. 6 Raju 10 28 txt given below (Table 1). 7 Manu 25 45 8 Murali 34 65 Name Age Weight 9 Remya 6 18 Raj 12 30 10 Vidya 50 57 Seena 24 47 Reading and Writing Excel Spreadsheets Rekha 5 23 Spreadsheets can be read and write in two ways: either as comma Priya 28 65 separated values (CSV) or as tab-delimited fi les (TXT). Meena 30 62 Raju 10 28 For CSV fi les we can use the functions read.csv( ) and write.csv( ) Manu 25 45 for reading from and writing to CSV fi les respectively. Murali 34 65 Remya 6 18 > write.csv(sample(1:10), "samplecsv.csv") Vidya 30 57 This statement will create a vector of random numbers from 1 to 10 Table 1: Sample tabular data using the sample () function and write it to the fi le samplecsv.csv. We can read the data in the fi le through the read.csv() statement below: > inp <- read.table("sampledataframe.txt", header=T) > x<-read.csv("samplecsv.csv") > inp For tab-delimited fi les, we can use the functions read.delim( ) and Name Age Weight write.delim( ) respectively with the following syntax. 1 Raj 12 30 2 Seena 24 47 read.delim(fi le, header = TRUE, sep = "\t", dec=".", fi ll = TRUE, ...) 3 Rekha 5 23 write.delim(df, fi le, quote = FALSE, row.names = FALSE, sep = 4 Priya 60 65 "\t", ...). 5 Meena 30 62 6 Raju 10 28 Here df represents the data frame to be written to the fi le. Other 7 Manu 25 45 arguments are similar to that of other input/output functions. 8 Murali 34 65 There are some more functions used for reading and writing 9 Remya 6 18 specifi c data like, 10 Vidya 50 57 readBin( ) - reading binary data Here the argument header is set to T (true) which tells that the write.Bin( ) - writing binary data fi rst row of the data is column names. Now using the function readChar( ) - reading character data write.table( ) we can write this data into a fi le. writeChar( ) - writing character data > write.table(inp, "new.txt", sep='\t', quote=FALSE) readFASTA( ) - reading FASTA fi le writeFASTA ( ) - writing FASTA fi le This statement will writes the dataframe in the variable inp to a new file named “new”. If the file is not there in the directory, Thus with this issue we are concluding the fi le manipulation it will be created automatically with the execution of the write. mechanisms in R. We shall explore R with another topic in the table ( ) statement. sep=’\t’ indicates that the data is tab coming issue. Have a nice time! separated. n
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 32 www.csi-india.org Dushyant Thatte*, Gurmeet Rao**, Nupur Ray***, and Sandeep Bhatt**** CIO Perspective Business Consultants at TCS
Managing Technology>> Critical Success Factors of Global Video Conference: A Case Study Introduction hand except a direction from the sponsor The core team started the work by Video conferencing has become certain to organize a global video conference. identifying key criteria and constraints for now for a face-to-face event. Such Connecting 60 participants operating the event. Some of them are: conferences have become popular as in fi ve diff erent time zones from 24 • Cost of video conference they bring geographically diversifi ed diff erent cities assuring value of time was • Ease of user participation associates, business partners and leaders the biggest challenge. The next challenge • Quality of conference (user together. was about lack of commitment from experience) But is it as easy as a teleconference stakeholders, remote users, leadership • Technology feasibility (infrastructure or a typical conference comprising two to and so on which could have led to the integration) three locations with a few associates? In failure. • Demographics the present day business scenario, there Administrative issues with video is no room for failure where multiple conference room booking can be They analyzed, evaluated two options and stakeholders’ eff ort is involved. Learning considered as a permanent pebble on presented to the sponsor. hard way will not bring in value and the the critical path. There are other frequent Option one proved less signifi cant for large technology will be questioned. On the troubles like Location Point of Contact’s number of users, feasibility and licenses. other hand, with better preparation a (LPoC) availability, unavailability of rooms, So, this option was ruled out. Option two video conference can turn out to be a great no response from administrators, limited had a high cost proposition and exhaustive experience. licenses and travel restrictions. travel was involved. So, this also could not The authors have organized a video Strategy be taken forward. conference with 60 participants operating Even if it seems trivial at the beginning, but A blended approach was evaluated. in fi ve diff erent time zones from 24 developing an end-to-end strategy proved The core team proposed that participants diff erent cities aiming to lay a foundation to be the winning stroke. within two hours driving distance from for team collaboration. To eff ectively meet objectives within participating location would join from offi ce, Authors shall share their live budget and schedule, the leadership team while others would join from individual experience, lessons learned, best practices decided to form a core team (authors). desktops using licensed video conference and key techniques about how to bring The team brain-stormed a strategy software. Additionally, the number of value and make most out of a multiparty, and shared the transparent vision with remote licenses was limited to fi ve and total large team video conference. the sponsor. The core team was given number of nodes was limited to 20. Challenges autonomy to choose more volunteers, Implementation The very fi rst challenge was where to as required. It was the core team’s job to Core team created a detailed plan and started begin! In other words, what should be identify challenges, explore alternative execution by collecting information, which the fi rst task since there was nothing at solutions and make recommendations. included: Alternative Analysis (Option One and Option Two) Criteria Option One Option Two Description A technology solution that can enable users joining All participants joining from the nearest facility from their own desktop. (video conference rooms).
Cost Due to large number of nodes, no freeware is readily High Travel, living and daily allowance. available. High license cost. User Experience Due to bandwidth issue, user experience is hampered. With lesser number of nodes – better user experience. Technology Feasibility With high number of users bandwidth issue typically Tried-and-Tested. escalates. Ease of Participation Downloading and Installing software requires individual Participants require traveling. Technological eff ort. logistics are pretested. Participants work No impact of location. Good method for widely Cost increases with population dispersion. location dispersed team – if other factors are not considered.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 33 Alternative Analysis (Option Three – the blended approach) Criteria Option Three Description Participants within 2 hours of travel distance to join from offi ce locations; others to join from individual desktop. Cost Use of limited number of licenses and available video conference locations. User Experience Due to higher participating locations compared to Option Two, user experience may be compromised. Technology Feasibility Requires technology integration and interface between video conference facility and remote video conference software. Ease of Participation Users to join from home or central location. Participants work location Work location becomes very critical. A lot of remote users (users more than 2 hours’ drive from offi ce) lead to solution similar to Option One.
Sponsor chosen option three - mix and match approach.
• Participant details – Name, email, • “Logistics wasn't easy since this was cluster such as 4, 8, 12, 16 and so on in phone, offi ce location and constraints not normal working hours for some parallel, and on board the remote users. • Nearest offi ce locations with video folks.” Procure licenses of remote software conferencing facility (in India, USA Lessons Learnt/ Best Practices (Cisco Jabber or equivalent). Train remote and Canada) users separately on using the selected • Infrastructure support team contacts Authors realized few critical success factors to bring value to a global video software. Next step was to map each participants conference. Once all locations and all remote spanning across 24 cities to the users are tested in diff erent phases, plan Location Point of Contacts (LPoC) participating location. With the for one or two full house dry runs. In all Organization of dry runs and main demographics details at hand, core the runs, take support from Audio/Video event requires sincere commitment and team planned dry runs and scripts. They help desk resolving screen/audio/other ownership. LPoC are also responsible for organized the fi rst dry run with only issues. Monitor if the full house dry runs understanding the logistics and making a handful of locations and gradually are fi ne with selected locations. Publish video conference facilities ready for the increased them. Dry run reports were the dry run report to the participants and main event. Thus, it is critical to identify shared with the sponsor and participants. management. one responsible volunteer from each After the fi nal successful full house location in concurrence with his/her Calendar / Bridge / Room booking dry run, core team presented results supervisor. Convene the dates in consultation with to sponsor and leadership who were LPoC providing them adequate time. Book beginning to be confi dent of the outcome. Location Infrastructure Support the calendars once all the parties agree on The fi nal step was to decide a convenient LPoC requires communicating with the date and time for dry runs. Reserve the date for the main event and booking local Administration to reserve video video conference rooms, bridge on priority participants’ calendar. Sponsor chose two conference room. They need to procure basis considering the limited availability dates (one as back up). support from the Infrastructure (IS) team taking assistance of administration team, The core team focused on the agenda during the conference. if necessary. of the main event. They realized that there Stakeholder’s Buy-In Scheduling the main event must be a well-rehearsed script with time The conference requires to be tested boxes, and a moderator. The team created With satisfactory dry runs, plan for the with active support of all the parties main date and time with sponsor adjusting a script measuring 1.5 hours. The main involved. Commitment from management, event was remarkable. for the best convenient time of all administration, LPoC, IS are the bottom line. participants. Let the Project Management Participants’ feedback: Time zones and the suitable slot to Offi ce (PMO or equivalent) book the • “For such a technology-dependent the best possible convenience calendar of the participants. In that way, session, I think it went quite well. Organizers must determine suitable time slots everyone will feel the importance of the Thanks for organizing this folks.” for dry runs and for the main event in consent event and will make all attempts to join • “We need to send out the invites at with LPOCs. the main event. least two weeks in advance and let people know that they may have to Dry Runs Marketing travel to specifi c locations.” It is necessary to plan dry runs. All Marketing the concept and capturing • “I believe we planned it well despite locations across multiple geographies every mind sets the ambience for the the fact that it was the fi rst instance.” do not need to be connected in one go conference. There are diff erent ways to • “Overall it was a positive and fun considering many will have technical popularize the event. Publish in other experience. Just seeing everyone was challenges. Phase out the locations and forums to the relevant stakeholders. wonderful” remote users. Plan the locations in a Email correspondences should be creative
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 34 www.csi-india.org following a story board method or any Making it Sustainable c) Announce moderator who will other suitable technique. The following is the list of guidelines for control the fl ow Ensure that the participants feel value organizing a high performance video 5) Execute main event and look forward to attend and enjoy. conference for every professional. a) Start event with introduction from Authors ran a teaser series revealing one 1) Establishing a Team moderator followed by participants number daily so that the participants look a) Setup the kick-off meeting and b) Introduce agenda with timeline forward to know the answer. identify responsible volunteers c) Have sponsor provide brief on agenda b) Share vision, objective and challenges and kick-off the meeting c) Clarify expectations d) Let the event fl ow as per the written 2) Determine “how to execute” video script controlled by moderator conference a) Determine critical factors, for Conclusion example, demographics, technology It is a critical decision to choose between availability and cost constraints etc. a virtual mode and an actual co-located Few other quick pointers b) Identify alternatives and analyze collaboration. • Remote software (Cisco Jabber c) Choose best suitable option Each specifi c type of video conference Dry Runs (pilot) or equivalent) user must only be 3) Conduct to test bridge and its set up has limitations on feasibility of selected option connected to remote software only. number of participating locations. So a) Identify LPoC for each location from If the remote user connects to an to speak, 60 users joining from home is audio bridge and video conference Practice, Administration, Infrastructure, unlikely to be technologically feasible. On software, there will be echo. Audio-Video helpdesk team the other hand, 60 users in a single room • Remote users should also use LAN b) Identify users who will be joining cannot be covered by a single still camera instead of Wi-Fi. from remote locations with adequate lights/sound. • LPoC on each location should be c) Ensure that all remote users familiar with video peripherals have Cisco Jabber (or any other It is pertinent that the sponsor of the • Technical Organizer must not be suitable software) downloaded and organization ought to take into account part of video conference to avoid confi gured the fl ip side of it. Once in a year, team must disturbance for other participants. d) Reserve four to fi ve dry run dates and meet in person. Not all human aspects There must be two technical time based on participating locations can be covered in a video conference. coordinators, one to be in touch and time zones This mode demands substantial time not e) Reserve video conference facility at with the Audio-Video team and the only for the conference strategy, but also respective locations second with the remote users. the technical possibilities and capacity. f) Discuss dry run results and progress • All remote users must be included in A particular agenda item which might with leadership team on a regular basis testing during fi nal dry run. be a great success in a teleconference g) Once all locations are tested, co- • Round robin introduction must be ordinate at least two full house dry runs may go fl op in video conference. So, moderated and all the locations 4) Prepare for main event executing the idea might turn up to be should go on mute by default unless a) LPoC to report on site before an hour disappointing, if not rehearsed. speaking and get video conference set-up ready Bringing high value from a video • Block calendars for all participants prior to the arrival of participants conference event is not impossible. Authors at least two weeks in advance to b) Have all audio devices be on mute can assure the success if one considers the increase turn-around. unless speaking experience shared in this article. n
Dushyant Thatte has over 10 years of experience in IT industry and with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). He is working in lean six sigma domain since 2005. Currently, he is working as a lean six sigma process consultant for a US based large fi nancial services organization
Gurmeet Rao is a seasoned business consultant within the Global Consulting Practice of TCS. She is currently handling the delivery support function and off shore sales for the North America region of the ITPSM practice.
Nupur Ray, has over 17 years of IT experience in end to end project management, process consultancy, testing and service management. She is a certifi ed PMP, Scrum Master and ITIL Foundation v3. She holds membership of CSI and IEEE. She is currently functioning as a Test Manager for TCS Ltd.
Sandeep Bhatt has over 17 years of IT experience in Service Management related tools and process working as Process Consultant for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). He is ITIL Intermediate certifi ed with Remedy RSP. About the Authors
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 35 Krishna Chaitanya Telikicherla*, Harigopal K B Ponnapalli** and Dr. Ashutosh Saxena*** Security Corner *Research Associate, Security and Privacy Research Lab, Infosys **Principal Research Analyst, Infosys, India ***Principal Research Scientist, Infosys, India Information Security » Security Features in Contemporary Browsers for the Users Abstract: This article is the ninth in the series of articles, focusing on security of the web platform. In our previous articles, we have covered a lot of ground for developers on important web application security vulnerabilities, and their mitigation techniques. Now we shift our focus from developers to end users and cover some important security and privacy features provided by the contemporary browsers, which every end user should be familiar with. Our objective is to present these less known security features in browsers with a hope to develop a safe browsing practice for end users.
Introduction browsers. We are not making any eff orts threats cannot be prevented by technology The World Wide Web plays a critical role to comprehensively cover or compare alone and need proactive refutation by in everyday life, with the drastic growth individual browser specifi c features. Our end users as well. To help reduce these of social networking websites, online attempt is to cover a more common set threats, contemporary browsers come bill payments, entertainment, online of features that are available in most with phishing and malware fi lters that infrastructure services like transport browsers. are turned on by default. For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, this fi lter is and power etc. As a result, enterprises Phishing & Malware Filters are focusing on end users to off er User called as SmartScreen fi lter which can Identity theft is one of the major threats Centric, Personalized service off erings be turned on or off from Safety Menu. In over the web and the prime channels over the web. Today, more complex and Google Chrome, the same can be seen used by identity thieves for this purpose sensitive services are exposed over the in privacy settings as shown in Fig. 1. An are phishing and malware distribution. web to the public, which were diffi cult up-to-date blacklist of known phishing In phishing scams, identity thieves set to imagine previously. Naturally, this sites and malware will be maintained up a fraudulent site that looks similar immense power of the web is attracting by browses. These fi lters work in the to a genuine popular site, and spread organized crime. With more power comes background while a user surfs the web. them via bulk unsolicited emails (spam). more responsibility to users. Security is They compare the site’s address or the Unsuspicious users follow the links in everyone’s responsibility and involves software being downloaded with their the email and enter their credentials into people, process and technology. A well- blacklist, and if there is a match, the fi lters the fraudulent site, without noticing the known proverb in security community is alert the user with an appropriate warning. site’s address and ignoring visual alerts “Security is as strong as the weakest link Many of the recent studies[1] report these displayed by browser. As a result, identity in the chain”. Unfortunately, in the digital fi lters to be very eff ective in fi ghting and thieves get the credentials of the victims. world, users see security as a technology reducing phishing and malware scams. Similarly, attackers lure users to download problem and ignore their role, thereby While it is a common misguidance on malicious free software like video codecs, becoming the weakest link. A lot of threats the web that these fi lters will slow down video conversion software etc., to play like identity theft, sensitive private-data browser’s performance, they are very interesting videos on the web. These theft are realized by employing several critical for safer browsing and users are malware, while apparently playing the social engineering tactics and exploiting strongly advised to turn on these fi lters, in video, steal users’ data and silently export the insecure browsing habits of end users. case they are turned off . it to the attacker’s server. Many of these Security features are often considered as a hindrance to usability. Browser vendors strive to build security features in an unobtrusive manner, with a default confi guration that off ers a safe browsing experience. Raising security awareness in end users is the toughest problem to crack. Over the past few years, browser vendors have made tremendous eff orts to build several security features into browsers, to fi ght against cyber threats. They include features like phishing fi lters, private anonymous browsing mode, cross site scripting fi lters, improvised SSL support, safe remote code execution policies, etc. In this article, will focus on some of these Fig. 1: Malware and malware fi lters in Chrome and Internet Explorer important security and safety features of
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 36 www.csi-india.org Secure Sockets Layer or Transport Layer Security Features Many websites proudly declare they use 128-bit SSL and hence their sites and users are completely secure. Well, it is not completely true. Whenever you fi nd “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP” in browser address bar, it means the site is using SSL/ TLS. However, the scope of SSL protection is limited to protecting sensitive data from sniffi ng and tampering by attackers, while in transit between the client machine and web server. SSL helps in authenticating a genuine site to a user by off ering confi dentiality and integrity of data on the wire. It does not off er any protection from application security vulnerabilities we discussed in earlier articles (e.g., SQL Fig. 3: Warning issued by IE8 if a site presents a cer fi cate issued to a diff erent site injection, XSS, etc.), malware, phishing threats. Also, verifying if SSL is properly confi gured on a website (by carefully browser vendors to incorporate their the browser and the web server. With observing the security alerts displayed root certifi cates into browsers’ inbuilt HTTPS, it is relatively easy to detect MITM by browser), is the responsibility of end certifi cate store. To diff erentiate this attacks if end users are more watchful. To users. Explaining SSL in non-technical increased trust, the entire address bar succeed with an MITM attack, attackers terms is diffi cult, however, we attempt to turns green as shown in Fig. 2. need to obtain a certifi cate on the genuine domain name from a reputed CA. As it is highlight some of the clues that users see Certifi cate Warnings diffi cult to get such a certifi cate, typically while browsing a HTTPS site, and how to In Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM), attackers put a certifi cate they obtained interpret them and react to. attackers will position themselves between The Lock Icon If HTTPS is properly confi gured on a website, users will see a lock icon in the address bar. The appearance of the icon varies from browser to browser (see Fig. 2) and also depends on the type of the certifi cate. In the past there are several incidents involving certifi cation authorities issuing fraudulent certifi cates to attackers without proper validations. To address this, extended validation certifi cates are introduced, in which there are much stricter business validations by a CA (Certifi cation Authority), before issuing a certifi cate to a website. Also, extended validation includes CAs working with Fig. 4: Warning issued by IE8 if a site’s cer fi cate is not from a trusted issuer
for a diff erent domain, or use a self- generated certifi cate with the genuine domain name. In the scenario where the attacker uses a certifi cate obtained for a diff erent domain, the browser raises an alert informing that the user is connecting to a site that is diff erent from what is mentioned in the certifi cate (as shown in Fig. 3). An option is provided for the user to proceed and connect to the website, Fig. 2: Appearance of the lock icon in IE8 and Chrome for SSL enabled websites but it is highly risky and should be chosen
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 37 the content displayed in browser will have both secure and insecure content. Such sites are proven to be exploited by man- in-the-middle attacks[5]. Contemporary browsers alert the user whenever there is a mixed mode scenario (see Fig. 6), and it is always safe to allow only secure resources. Conclusion In this article, we have discussed a couple of less-known security and safety features of contemporary web browsers. In continuation with the theme of this article, in our next article we shall explain some more security and privacy features: private browsing mode, clearing sensitive data, to name a few. We conclude by providing some safe browsing tips, which will help end users in having a safer browsing experience. Disclaimer: All names of the websites, services and applications mentioned in this article are intended for informative purposes only with no malicious and /or promotional intents. Readers may check with vendors, product Fig. 5: Unchecking support for SSL 2.0 in Internet Explorer and service providers for the latest updates. All trademarks, copyrights are only when the user is sure about the and weaker cryptographic protocols. This owned by their respective owners. website address. can be exploited by some fraudulent web References In the other scenario where websites servers to negotiate a weaker version of [1] Evolutions in Browser Security, provide self-signed or free certifi cates the protocol. It is recommended to turn October – 2013, https://www. which are not from a trusted issuer, off support for old and weaker versions, nsslabs.com/system/files/public- browsers display appropriate error especially SSL2.0, as shown in Fig. 5. report/files/Evolutions%20In%20 messages, as shown in Fig. 4. Users need Mixed Mode Content Browser%20Security_0.pdf to avoid accepting connections with It is a safe practice to serve all resources [2] Privacy and Security settings such websites, as it may be a case of an in an HTTPS-enabled web page over SSL. in Google Chrome - https:// MITM attack. However, some sites serve a few resources support.google.com/chrome/ Disabling SSL 2.0 like scripts, images, style sheets, etc., over topic/14666?hl=en&ref_ For backward compatibility reasons, some plain HTTP in an HTTPS page. This leads topic=14662 browsers support older SSL2.0 standard, to a mixed mode content scenario where [3] Browser Security Settings for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox - http://www.veracode.com/ blog/2013/03/browser-security- settings-for-chrome-firefox-and- internet-explorer/ [4] Security and Privacy features in Internet Explorer - http://windows. microsoft.com/en-in/windows- vista/security-and-privacy-features- in-internet-explorer-8 [5] Internet Explorer Mixed Mode Handling - http://msdn. microsoft.com/en-us/library/ ee264315(v=vs.85).aspx n Fig. 6: Warning issued by IE8 when there is a mixed mode content in a website
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 38 www.csi-india.org Krishna Chaitanya Telikicherla is a Research Associate with Security and Privacy Research Lab, Infosys Labs. His research focus is primarily on web security, specifi cally analyzing browser security policies, web attacks, defenses and formal verifi cation of web specifi cations. He is a regular blogger and speaker at several developer and security meets in India. For his contributions to technical communities, Microsoft has presented him the prestigious “Most Valuable Professional (MVP)” award for 4 consecutive years (2010-2013). He can be contacted at [email protected]
Harigopal K B Ponnapalli is a Principal Research Analyst at Infosys, India. His research interests include web application security assurance, strong authentication and PKI. Ponnapalli received his M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. He has 15+ years of experience in application security. He authored multiple papers and coauthored a book titled "Distributed Systems Security: Issues, Processes and Solutions" (Wiley, 2009). He also fi led a few patents to his credit. You can contact him at [email protected]
Ashutosh Saxena is a Principal Research Scientist at Infosys, India. His main research interest is Information Security. Dr. Saxena received his Ph.D in computer science and has more than 80 international publications and SEVEN granted patents. He’s a life member of CSI and senior member of IEEE. Contact him at [email protected]. About the Authors
CSI Communications - Call for Articles for Forthcoming Issues Please note that Cover Themes for forthcoming issues are planned as follows: • April 2014 - Internet of Things (Send your articles for April 14 issue latest before 23rd March 2014) • May 2014 - Graph Theory • June 2014 - Security in Software Development • July 2014 - Business Analytics • August 2014 - Software Engineering • September 2014 - IT History
In order to provide a fair opportunity to all for contribution, we are making an open appeal to all of you to send your articles for CSI Communications magazine. Kindly note that the Editorial Board of CSI Communications is looking for high quality technical articles for diff erent columns pertaining to the above themes or other themes of emerging and current interests. The articles should cover all aspects of computing, information and communication technologies that should be of interest to readers at large and member fraternity of CSI and around. The articles shall be peer reviewed by experts decided by the Editorial Board and the selected ones shall be published. Both theoretical and practice based articles are welcome but not research papers. The articles and contributions may be submitted in the following categories: Cover Story, Research Front, Technical Trends and Article. CIOs/Senior IT/IS personnel/consultants of the companies, who are managing technologies/projects related to the cover themes are welcome to contribute under the CIO Perspective - Managing Technology section. Similarly, HR Senior Managers/ Personnel/ Consultants are invited to contribute under HR section. Letters to the Editors for ReaderSpeak(), questions to be answered in Ask an Expert, your experience of Programming Tips under the Practitioner Workbench: Programming.Tips(), your memories of yesteryears of computing for IT.Yesterday(), theme based crossword puzzle and theme based cartoon for Brain Teaser column are also welcome. Here are article submission guidelines for your information: • The articles may be long (2500-3000 words) or short (1000-1500 words) authored in as the original text. (Plagiarism is strictly prohibited – see the note at the end to know about meaning of plagiarism.) • The articles may be sent to the CSI Editorial Board via email [email protected]. • All manuscripts should be written at the level of the general audience of varied level of members. • Equations and mathematical expressions within articles are not recommended, however, if absolutely necessary, should be minimum. • List of references is preferred and it is recommended that list not more than 10 references at the end of your manuscript. Please don’t include any embedded reference numbers within the text of your article. If you would to like to refer, you may state names in the text and provide full reference at the end. The reference must state the names of the authors, title, publisher’s name, complete publication reference with month and year. Web URLs should be there for website references with accessed date. • Figures and Images used should be limited to maximum of three (only high resolution images need to be sent, and the image needs to be sent separately also). • Only MS-Word and PDF submissions are allowed. • Include a brief biography of four to six lines for each author with author picture (high resolution). • Please note that Editors will edit the contents as felt necessary. • Editorial board will notify the authors of selected articles and authors will be asked to fi ll up the copyright transfer form before accepting the article.
Please note that months for various cover themes are tentative and may change depending on prevailing circumstances.
(Issued on behalf of Editorial Board of CSI Communications)
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 39 Dr. N L Kalthia IT.Yesterday() Former Chairman, CSI Surat Chapter and CSI Senior member
CSI Surat Chapter Dr. John T. George has very rightly mentioned in his article (CSI Communications, Volume 37, Issue-5, Page-38) that in these days of Internet, it is extremely diffi cult to continue with the activities of any academic association. Continuous eff orts are required even to pull on a National level body like CSI Chapter. However without getting disappointed I would like to mention few interesting things about the activities of CSI Surat chapter.
In Gujarat PRL (Physical Research Laboratory, the mother land Institute of present space technology-established by Dr. Vikram Sarabhai) had IBM 1620 computer right from 1962. Access to the computer was through punched cards and paper tapes. This was mainly used for dealing with research problems. There used to be evening training classes for a certifi cate course during 1970-80.
In the era of 80-90 there was a high torrent of acquiring knowledge of computer science. Dr. Thrimurti of Sardar Patel University, Vallabhavvidhyanagar was a pioneer for spreading exhibition PC-EXPO at Surat, fi rst of its kind in Gujarat. All these computer science education in Gujarat state. Post graduate activities went on very successfully for the fi rst eight years. diploma in computer science was started in 1987 at South Gujarat University Surat. There was tremendous rush for admission. No An industrial belt at the sea shore of Surat (Hazira) started its sooner a child obtained graduation, parents were eager to admit activities in 1990. The establishment of Reliance, L & T, Essar, him in PGDCA. During one of our academic meetings in 1989, Kribhco and such big industrial bodies started developing at Dr. Thrimurti explained how computer science academic activities seashore belt of Hazira port (Surat). Obviously during this period, should be spread for the benefi t of the society through CSI Surat had many young software/hardware engineers in this belt. platform. By that time he had already started MCA program in our CSI could attract them by its activities. In fact highly technical university department. lectures/ seminars in Networking, DTP, DBMS, Banking sectors, Viruses etc. used to be arranged with the co-operation of the industry and its staff .
In the fi rst decade of CSI Surat chapter we had four chairmen from industry group. Continuous eff orts were made to put CSI chapter in the front line. Every year we used to organize 3-days exhibition. In those days it was a great event for the city. Public needs were satisfi ed through these exhibitions. We had a fund of Rs. 5 Lacs in the year 1996. This was deposited in the H/Q for the purpose of purchase of chapter premises. At that time somehow we could not purchase our premises. The money is still with CSI H/Q.
Chapter experienced de-acceleration right from 1999 onwards and became dormant for three to four years. By that time some dynamic persons took over as chairmen and activities were boosted up. Chapter got best chapter award in the region in 2003. By now such tings have happened three times. In fact, so far life of A public meeting was arranged inviting citizens of Surat for this chapter has taken a shape of a sine curve with amplitude of establishing CSI Surat chapter sometime in August, 1990. More three-to-four years. than 35 persons not only attended the meeting but showed lot of enthusiasm for such an activity. Thus Surat chapter was These days, getting information of new development has become establishing in Nov. 1990. handy. It seems no one has a time to exchange their ideas for the betterment of a subject. Really, at heart I am much worried In its very fi rst year of establishment we had many activities like what will happen to this 25 years old CSI child!! We shall have to training for a common man, seminars for the benefi t of students, struggle a lot to continue our existence in a fast developing city invited talks etc. Over and above in Feb. 1991 we organized an like Surat with more than 40 lacs population. n "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 40 www.csi-india.org Dr. Debasish Jana Brain Teaser Editor, CSI Communications
Crossword » Test your Knowledge on Indic Computing Solution to the crossword with name of fi rst all correct solution provider(s) will appear in the next issue. Send your answers to CSI Communications at email address [email protected] with subject: Crossword Solution - CSIC March 2014
12 CLUES 34 ACROSS 5 1. A book that lists words in groups of synonyms and related concepts (9) 6 7 5. An OCR system for Hindi and other Indian Languages (10) 8. A basic unit of a language's phonology (7) 8 9 9. Indian script code for information interchange (5) 10. An ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts (6) 10 11 13. A project that attempts to localize Linux for India (8) 19. Conversion of a text from one script to another (15) 12 20. A non-government charitable society devoted to Indic language computing (6) 13 14 21. A unit of speech sound (5) 24. A transliteration scheme that allows a lossless romanization of Indic 15 16 scripts (4) 17 18 26. A Malayalam font (7) 27. Name of India's fi rst portal to host projects under FOSS licenses (7) 19 28. Used to type Indian language text in applications (9) 29. A particular size, weight and style of a typeface in typography (4) 20 DOWN 21 22 2. A freeware transliteration tool for Indian languages (6) 3. A phonetic input method for Unicode fonts in Devanagari in Linux (8) 23 24 4. A unique number for every character (7) 6. A website to promote Indic language computing on the Internet (10) 25 7. Graphics and intelligence based script technology (4) 11. Indian Govt initiative to facilitate human-machine interaction without 26 language barrier (4) 12. Standard keyboard layout for Indian scripts (8) 14. The study of the sounds of human speech (9) 15. An OCR tool for printed Tamil text (10) 27 16. A transliteration based typing tool for Hindi and other Indic scripts (8) 28 17. A Tamil Unicode font (10) 18. The vocabulary of a particular language (7) 22. A consonant sound (9)
29 23. A Devanagari word processor (7) 25. An Oriya Unicode font (7)
Solution to February 2014 crossword 1 2 3 4 Did you know about transliteration in Indic Computing? H ARMONY J O O MLA O OPP 5 Transliteration in Indic Computing R G NU E E 6 7 essentially deals with the conversion or T A R BAL L N N N 8 translation of a text from one language OI O PENSOLARIS to another. There are many such tools NC M R O 9 10 available for Indic languages: WH J ABBER F F U OA O R R 11 12 Yahoo! Transliteration, Google buiqV RR E K E K C 13 midj.k, Microsoft Indic Language Input KD F F OSS S E E 14 Tool, and many others. SS FK HHRI 15 16 17 TID RUP A L MNN 18 A PACHE O I E E I 19 LE S ENDMAI L T We are overwhelmed by the responses and solutions received from our enthusiastic readers 20 L A NT U T I 21 X MP P G X A Congratulations to 22 23 24 A W B R K UBUNTU Dr. Madhu S Nair (Dept. of Computer Science, University of Kerala, 25 N A LICE I 26 Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) MN S AMB A V 27 F AMP D Q E 28 for NEAR ALL correct answers to February 2014 month’s crossword. L AMP
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 41 Dr. Debasish Jana Ask an Expert Editor, CSI Communications
Your Question, Our Answer "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
On C++ Operator Overloading A In the statement c4 = c1 + c2, the right hand side of the From: Ansuman Mahanty, Dr. B. C. Roy Engineering College, assignment operator is the result of binary operator + applied Durgapur, West Bengal on c1 and c2 objects. And, the return type of overloaded operator + is a non-reference temporary object (as returned I am getting a compilation error for the following program. by value). A temporary object ceases to exist after the full This is giving an error where I am overloading the assignment expression of the statement, in which it appears. However, the operator, in the statement c4 = c1 + c2. I am compiling using gcc. What and why it went wrong? lifetime of the temporary object gets prolonged as long as it's a const reference (not when a non-const reference passed as 1. #include
Do you have something to ask? Send your questions to CSI Communications with subject line ‘Ask an Expert’ at email address [email protected]
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 42 www.csi-india.org H R Mohan Happenings@ICT Vice President, CSI, AVP (Systems), The Hindu, Chennai Email: [email protected]
ICT News Briefs in February 2014
The following are the ICT news and headlines to villages in a cost-eff ective way by • Indian start-ups draw big clients, investors. of interest in February 2014. They have been tapping the unused gap in terrestrial TV • Nasscom signs MoU with Healthcare compiled from various news & Internet sources spectrum bands, called white space. Federation of India to electronically • 2G: AAP alleges cover-up to protect including the dailies – The Hindu, Business Line, deliver healthcare services in the country Kanimozhi. aiming to support the Govt.’s plan to and Economic Times. • India slams US move to tighten H-1B visa achieve its ‘Universal Health Coverage’ Voices & Views rules. goals for India. • Low-tariff regime may not be sustainable • We are not a social media company now, • Bharti Airtel is to acquire Loop Mobile, a for the industry – Vodafone India CEO. we are mass media – Facebook India head. single circle (Mumbai) operator, for about • IT exports seen growing 15% – Nasscom. • Mobile tariff s to surge with price for Rs. 700 cr. • Most back-offi ce fi rms at initial stage spectrum. • Microsoft IT India is likely to set up a of IP development – report by KPMG- • National Security Council proposes “Centre of Excellence” in West Bengal. Nasscom. 3-pronged plan to protect Internet users. • Facebook to acquire the instant messaging • Panel rejects Govt claim that IT Act • It will be mandatory for Govt offi cials to company WhatsApp at $19 billion. use NIC email. protects citizens’ privacy. • Nokia takes the Android plunge with X • Aakash 4 to be available in market for • Of the 4.8 crore SMBs in the country, only series of low end smart phones. Rs 3,999 soon – Kapil Sibal. fi ve per cent have some web presence. • Tata Tele garners 40% share of dongle • The Centre would set up 15 Technology About 80 lakh people can immediately market and becomes the largest player in Training Centres in the country during the come on board – Head of Google this category. current fi ve year plan with an outlay of India (SMB). • Google to help two lakh more small • Policy must allow industry to innovate – Rs 2,200 crore. • Vote on Account 2014: The IT industry has businesses. DoT Secretary. • Sunil Mittal, Zuckerberg discuss • The $3.1 billion e-commerce market seen not so favourable budget statements in the past. partnership to get to the next billion users. (excluding online travel industry) is • ICSA (India) declared sick as its Rs. 480- expected to grow to $22 billion by 2018, IT Manpower, Staffi ng & Top Moves cr CDR plan failed. which still is miniscule compared with • French fi rm Atos to double India • Success in PCs, tablets, smartphones is China’s $200-billion industry – CLSA headcount to 20000 in three years. our future – Microsoft. report. • ICT Academy plans entrepreneurship • eBay’s 650 cr investment in Snapdeal • Annual smartphone growth in 2014 is development centres in 50 colleges. signals consolidation in e-commerce expected to be 19.3% and then decline to • Satya Nadella, a 1988 batch student 6.2% in 2018 – IDC. industry. from Electronics and Communications • Indian smartphone market to double to • Mozilla has showcased a smartphone department of Manipal Institute 80 million by fi scal end – Samsung. prototype for developing countries, which Technology (MIT) appointed as the new • India's PC market grew 4.8% in 2013 but could cost as less as $25 (about Rs 1,500). Microsoft CEO. 2014 looks grim – IDC. • New Google phone can map the • BlackBerry ties up with ValueLabs for its • India 2nd in list of countries facing cyber surrounding world in 3D. R&D. attack on mobiles – Kaspersky Lab. • Online majors Snapdeal, Flipkart are not • Sony Corporation will not shed jobs in • Maintaining Windows XP after April 8 our authorised resellers (with a view to India despite its global plan to exit the PC may cost Rs 1,190 crore/year – IDC. protect the offl ine dealers) – Lenovo. space. • India can be $100 bn software product • Apple looking at cars, medical devices for • Nasscom plans 3-year course for business industry by 2025 – iSPIRT. growth – Report. process management • A majority of companies in the payment • With 22-million users, India is Sweden’s • Aegis, part of the $39-billion Essar Group, card industry (PCI) have failed to meet Truecaller identifi cation app’s biggest will hire up to 9,000 people in fi scal 2015. the Data Security Standard – Verizon. market. • Airtel to soon take a call on 550 Loop • Indians lose crores in bitcoins as Japan • Tata Teleservices plans 4,000 wi-fi hot Mobile employees. exchange goes kaput spots in nine cities. • IT fi rms encouraging their staff in India to • Banks and securities companies will master some continental languages with • According to Google Trends, on a scale of increase their spending on IT products an eye on more IT off shoring work from 0-100, Modi scored 65 points, followed and services by 12.7 per cent to Rs 47,700 by Kejriwal (52 points) and Gandhi (41 crore in 2014 – Report. Europe. • Start-ups tap campus, social media for points) for the month of February so far. • Software services exports jump 37% to • Researchers IBM sent data at a rate of Rs 3.41 lakh cr in FY13 – RBI survey. talent. • Except for TCS, the others have reported 64 gigabits per second (Gb/s) over a Govt, Policy, Telecom, Compliance attrition rates upwards of 14% in Q42013, cable 57-metres-long using a type of laser • Spectrum auction starts; bids may much higher than a year ago. called a vertical-cavity surface-emitting hit around Rs. 55,000 cr. Govt gets • Synechron to hire 400 people this year in laser (VCSEL). Rs. 42,000 crore at end of Day 1. Bids India. • ASI, Google unveil 360-degree online rise to Rs. 44,500 cr on 2nd day. Govt. view of 30 monuments. expected to raise over 60,000 cr. Company News: Tie-ups, Joint • The 20-km free Wi-Fi zone in Patna is • Microsoft has off ered to partner with Ventures, New Initiatives world's longest. a public sector telecom company to • 10 years on, Facebook grapples with ageing. • Cognizant Technology Solutions aims to showcase its technology as an alternative • HCL ventures into healthcare with an reach $10-billion club. method of reaching Internet connectivity initial investment of Rs. 1000 cr. n
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 43 Inauguaral Speech Dr. Anirban Basu Summary Research Professor and Consultant; Chairman CSI Division V Utility Computing and Cloud Computing [A summary of the inaugural talk by Prof. V. Rajaraman, Fellow CSI, at the 2nd International Conference on the Advances in Cloud Computing at CSI Bangalore on September 19, 2013.] I consider it a privilege and an honour to important technological improvement which by the provider. be the Chief Guest and inaugurate this has given rise to computing as a utility is the Computing Utility has some additional important and timely conference and would rapid increase in communication bandwidth requirements due to the special nature of IT like to thank the Organizing Committee of at competitive cost. A report published by services. They are: the conference and it’s General Chairman the International Telecommunication Union 1. The infrastructure should be dynamic in 2011 states that between 2006 and 2011 Dr. Anirban Basu for inviting me. The area of and virtualized. In other words the cloud computing is growing in importance. available communication bandwidth in infrastructure should take diff erent All of us are using the cloud without being the world has increase eight fold and the “Avatars” depending on the users’ aware of it. Whenever we send an email cost has halved between 2008 and 2010. software and its special requirements. using Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail we are using We all know that CPU speed has been 2. A computing utility requires a two way the cloud infrastructure maintained by doubling every 18 months as predicted by communication to debug programs Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. The choice of Moore’s Law. Besides this, disk capacity unlike an electrical utility where two the term “Cloud Computing” is in my view has been doubling almost every 15 months. way interactions are not required. unfortunate as it befuddles a common man CPU power improvement is necessary 3. As applications of the computers is who is not an IT professional. We in the to practically implement fast encryption the primary requirement of customers, computing fi eld are guilty of using jargon and decryption essential when a public consultancy on applications should which confuses lay persons. communication infrastructure is used to be available as part of the service The other day I was at a meeting send data and programs. It is also essential off ering. This is often not emphasized where a bank manager asked me whether to enable multiple users to simultaneously in most publications as a distinctive Computer Science has progressed to such an share the CPU. The availability of large characteristic of a computing utility. extent that even clouds provide computing storage capacity has made it possible to 4. Security of customers’ data and programs power! In fact I also feel ignorant when host programs and large databases of are the responsibility of a provider. computer scientists use jargon without multiple users in a shared infrastructure. 5. As the location of computer explanation. Two days ago I was reading a Communication speed increase has enabled infrastructure is international, there is so called popular article in a newspaper in customers to use computers located on the no clarity on what laws apply in case of which the author had written that with the other side of the globe as if they are in the disputes. emergence of cloud computing, companies next room. A major diffi culty which customers are following a BYOD policy. For a minute In addition to the advances in computers perceive in using a computing utility is that I did not understand what BYOD meant as and communications, management there are no inter-operability standards I had not come across the term earlier. I philosophy has changed which has made between providers. Customers are concerned suddenly remembered that when I was a Computing Utility “practical”. Managers about the diffi culty of shifting their applications to another provider when their student in U.S.A I received an invitation to a were concerned about the mounting cost current provider’s Quality of Service becomes party in which at the bottom it was written of IT infrastructure and the consequent poor or the provider ceases operation. The R.S.V.P and BYOD. I did not understand what huge capital expenditure. Further due to the success of the Internet is due to the universal BYOD meant and I asked an American friend rapid obsolescence of computer technology, adoption of TCP/IP protocol. There is an its meaning. He explained that it meant Bring almost every three to four years computer systems needed replacement. The cost urgent need to standardize a “cloud protocol” Your Own Drinks! With this clue I surmised so that a customer can have a uniform view of that BYOD in the context of the article was of IT staff to maintain the infrastructure was increasing. It was realized that IT is services across providers. In an ideal situation Bring Your Own Device! In other words, architecture of a “cooperative computing companies were encouraging employees not the core activity of their organizations. Management trend is to outsource non-core utility” should evolve in which users’ contract to bring their own laptops, tablets or smart is only with “brokers” of computing services activities. Thus the availability of computing phones to access the cloud. To be sure and not with the providers. The brokers have as a utility where you pay for what you whether my guess was correct I went to my an overview of all providers’ off erings, the use and capital expense is reduced is a good friend Google and typed BYOD in the current loads on their infrastructure, current welcome development to the management search box. Sure enough I got over hundred charges etc. A broker can dynamically of organizations. thousand hits with a Wikipedia article schedule its customers’ jobs across providers leading the bunch. The Wikipedia article Existing utilities such as power utility has six balancing the load, optimizing cost and explained the term quite well. I will urge all major characteristics, namely, off er optimal services to customers. I am computer scientists to avoid using jargon. If 1. Investment in infrastructure is made by sure such a scenario will evolve over time as you use it please explain it to laymen. a provider who also maintains it. standardization always results in a win –win Very often scientists and engineers 2. The infrastructure is shared by several situation for all stake holders. come up with excellent ideas which are customers. I see that the conference has a rich premature. In other words a number of 3. The service is provided to customers schedule of invited talks by experts and factors have to conspire to make such ideas on-demand. contributed papers. I am happy to note that a reality. The idea of Computing Utility has 4. The service is elastic and scalable. there are almost 200 delegates. I am sure now become a reality due to a combination 5. A customer pays only for what he you will all gain by the discussions both of improvements in technology and changes consumes inside and outside the conference hall. I wish in management philosophy. The most 6. An agreed Quality of Service is assured this conference all success. n
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 44 www.csi-india.org Hearty Congratulations !! Winners of the CSI Best PhD Thesis Awards
First Prize Dr. PN Jebarani Sargunar Professor and Head in the Department of CSE in Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, Chennai, she received the Ph.D from Anna University, Chennai, in 2013. She passed the M.E. degree in Computer Science and Engineering, with First Rank, from M.S. University, Tirunelveli. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Government College of Engineering, Tirunelveli. With a teaching experience spanning 25 years, she is credited with over 100 publications in international journals and conferences. A winner of several best paper awards in international and national conferences, she has secured prizes in Elocution, Essay Writing, Sports & Games, and Bharat Scouts & Guides. She is a Life Member of CSI, with membership in IEEE Signal Processing Society, ACM and ISTE.
The thesis is titled “Investigations on Computer Vision System for Detection of Defects in Uniform Textures”.
Image processing is one of the fast developing domains in computer science. Defects detection from images has a signifi cant role in quality control of manufactured products, with extending application areas. Numerous methods have been proposed for performing this task. Texture, the property used to characterize the surface of a given phenomenon in an image, is undoubtedly one of the prime features deployed in image processing as well as pattern recognition. Texture classifi cation is eff ectively used in the investigation, interpretation and inferences of diff erent images such as for terrains, radiography and microscopic cells. Algorithms have been proposed for the identifi cation & analysis of defects in uniform textures in Medical images, Radiographic images and soil images. Neural Networks using Textural features are found to be effi cient in analyzing the defects because of the minimum processing time, high computational effi ciency and a defect detection accuracy of 95%. Second Prize Dr. S Malathi Professor, Department of CSE, Panimalar Engineering College, Chennai, she has a Ph.D from Sathyabama University, Chennai in the fi eld of Software Engineering. She graduated from Coimbatore Institute of Technology and obtained a Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Sathyabama University. With a teaching experience exceeding 18 years, she has published and presented several research papers in peer-reviewed International/National Journals and Conferences. She has motivated and guided number of projects, and one of the projects was accorded the Best Project Award from Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India. CSI recently honoured her with the “Best Paper Presenter in International Conferences” Award. She aspires to implement projects in her major areas of interest such as Software Engineering, Image Processing and Networks.
The Thesis is titled “Fuzzy Analogy Neuroticism Based Software Cost Estimation for Static and Dynamic Dataset”.
The economic implications of cost eff ective models for the estimation of eff ort has incited the software community to delve into newer and advanced research in Software Cost Estimation (SCE). Though there are multifarious models to ascertain the project features, there are no defi nite and reliable models to estimate the eff ort in terms of the team characteristics like neuroticism. A pioneering and tangible approach, namely, FUZzy ANalogy Neuroticism (FUZANN) has been evolved, which encompasses the fuzzy logic based analogy method with the project and team neuroticism characteristics, anger and anxiety in addition to other characteristics like joy and skill to unveil the eff ort for cost estimation. The method is examined with static and dynamic dataset and the results indicate that FUZANN method performs in an excellent manner and produces better cost estimates and also highlights that neuroticism characters form an integral part of Software Cost Estimation.
Third Prize Dr. R Shreelekshmi Professor at the LBS Institute of Technology for Women, Trivandrum, she obtained a Ph.D from the University of Kerala in 2013. She has an ME in Computer Science & Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and B. Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Kerala. She had an early career at the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), after which she started teaching as Lecturer in Computer Science at the College of Engineering, Trivandrum. She has prime interest in Steganography, Steganalysis, Pattern Recognition and Data Compression.
The thesis is titled “Reliable Techniques for Steganalysis of Digital Images”.
In the today’s digital world, the need for powerful steganalysis methods is ever growing because of the vast opportunities for covert communications. There are several robust methods in the literature for quantitative steganalysis of images employing LSB replacement steganography. Once a steganalyst makes an estimation, the confidence level he can attach with the result is not very high as he is not sure of which results are accurate and which are inaccurate. This thesis incorporates the following to make steganalysis of images subjected to LSB replacement steganography more reliable: (i) a new steganalysis method, (ii) a novel image classification method, and (iii) improvements to the two most accurate steganalysis methods in the literature - Sample Pair Method and Least Square Method. All these proposals are based on properties of images which are invariant with embedding. Hence knowledge about cover image is not required for the analysis. As a consequent result, two preprocessing methods are proposed for increasing the security of LSB replacement steganography.
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 45 CSI News
From CSI Chapters » Please check detailed news at: http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csic-chapters-sbs-news
SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST KOLKATA (REGION II) Apurba Chakraborty, Dr. Ankur Ganguly, 8 February 2014: First National Conference on “Research Trends in Computer Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, Dr. Ashutosh Science & Applications” Saxena, Prof. J K Mondal and Aniruddha Nag Prof. Sanghamitra spoke on “Soft Computing Approaches for Data Mining”. She covered basics of data mining, applications, knowledge discovery, case studies on credit card fraud detection, Amazon.com book recommendation and Wal-Mart’s inventory management. She gave guidelines on research scope of data mining in diff erent fi elds like e-commerce, biotechnology, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, astronomy etc. Dr. Saxena explained use of cloud and smart gadgets. Prof. Mondal spoke on “Steganography”. He shared views on history of Steganography, applications of symmetric algorithms, authentication and secret message transmission, image authentication and technical knowhow of Steganography. Certifi cates were distributed to paper presenters and participants.
Í Guests on stage for conference AHMEDABAD (REGION III) Dr. Amit Sheth, Wright State University 4 January 2014: Guest Lecture on “Transforming Big Data into Smart Data” Dr. Sheth shared his views on features of Big Data 4V and challenges associated with it. He explained how to utilize metadata, employ semantics and intelligent processing. He also discussed recent work on Continuous Semantics, which seeks to use dynamically created models of new objects, concepts, and relationships for better understanding new cues in data that captures rapidly evolving events and situations.
Í Par cipants a ending the lecture Mr. Amancio Britto of Escan 8 February 2014: Public Lecture and demonstration on “Security Solutions for SMB/Corporate & Enterprise” Mr. Britto talked about technical aspects of security solutions, how they are diff erent for SMB/Corporate & Enterprise, and about challenges and solutions available from vendors in general. Live demonstration was also given. He discussed about important features of security products and explained what precautions need to be taken while selecting products by the corporate users.
Í Mr. Naishadh Diwanji, CSI - Fellow Member and speaker Mr Amancio Bri o SURAT (REGION III) Dr. N L Kalathia, Mr. A G Patel and Mr. B C Patel 27 October, 8 and 15 December 2013: Three-days Workshop on “Preparing Teachers of Computer Science in the subject of Mathematics for their NET/ SET Examination” Speakers observed multiple failures in clearing the NET/SET Examination which is mandatory for the post of Assistant Professor in all the Colleges. Therefore, a novel workshop of its kind was organized at the host institute Smt. Tanuben and Dr. Manubhai Trivedi College of Information Science, Surat. About 35 teachers engaged in teaching at various B.C.A. colleges of Surat participated in this workshop arranged for preparing them for their NET/SET examination in the subjects of Mathematics and Computer Science. Í Guests and par cipants a ending the workshop
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 46 www.csi-india.org SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST BANGALORE (REGION V) Bindu Madhava, Iqbal Ahmed, Dr. N Sarat Chandra 7 December 2013: National Conference on “Cyber Space Security- Babu, Prof. Balakrishnan, Deepu Chandran, Major Gen 2013(NCCSS-2013)” KA Muthanna, Dr. K R Prasana and R Sri Kumar Theme was “Securing Nation’s Critical Infrastructure”. Dr. Sarat Chandra Babu spoke about work being done by CDAC in Cyber Security. He threw light on cyber attacks mounted through cyber media and on infected “botnet” computers harming economies. Prof. Balakrishnan spoke on role played by Social Media in cyber space and on role of biometrics as a traceable solution. Mr. Chandran spoke on “Coding Standards for Secure Embedded Systems”. Major Gen Muthanna spoke on “Vulnerability and Threat Scenarios”. Dr Prasana spoke on “Cyber Security Threats- Aurora – Real Time Security Threat Management”. There were host of other speakers who spoke on the latest trends in Cyber Security. Mr. Sri Kumar talked on Innovations in Cyber Crime Investigations & Digital Forensics.
Í The Inaugural Func on HYDERABAD (REGION V) Prof. SV Raghavan, Dr. Ajay Kumar, Prof. Rameshwar 31 January 2014: A two day conference “INFOSEC 2014” Rao, V Muralidharan and Dr. N Sarat Chandra Babu Releasing annual magazine on Cyber Security ‘INFOSEC Depot’ Prof. Raghavan said that Education and Health are two areas where IT is going to play key role. Dr. Kumar informed that public is not quite aware of implications of cyber-attacks and hence Govt. of India recently introduced Cyber Security Policy. Prof. Rao said that data should be secured for social benefi t and economic development. Dr. Sarat Chandra Babu expressed that ‘Internet of Things’ concept has made almost every device on earth interconnected and vulnerable for cyber-attack. Mr. Muralidharan said that C-DAC is empanelled by CERT-in for testing and certifying IT solutions/ products developed.
Í Guests on stage CHENNAI (REGION VII) Mr. R Sampath, CEO & MD, BeWo Technologies, 3 February 2014: Presentation on “Rural Upward Mobility: Ultimate Android Chennai Solutions for Social Impact” Mr. Sampath outlined the need for rural mobile ICT for poverty alleviation by extending basic services to door-steps of citizens. He provided various case studies on Financial Inclusion, eGovernance and Rural Mother & Child Healthcare. Holistic solutions cover integrated, rugged, multi-authentication devices and software incorporating UIDAI Aadhaar & MicroATM standards for use by semi-literate. He said that success in this challenging space stems from deep awareness of rural needs and partnership with NGOs, government and global institutions.
Í Faculty member giving presenta on COCHIN (REGION VII) 11 January 2014: Regional Finals “CSI Discover Thinking Quiz 2014” Winners of regional fi nals are Aadith V Menon and Sabarinath R Nair of Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Tripunithura, Ernakulam. They will be participating in the fi nals for the National level.
Í Winners of the Discover Thinking 2014 quiz programme along with the Quiz Master and Offi ce Bearers of Cochin Chapter
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 47 SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST SIVAKASI (REGION VII) Dr. S Anand, Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE, Mepco 27 January 2014: Seminar on “Medical Image Enhancement” Schlenk Engineering College Nearly 50 faculty members and 20 PG Students and Research Scholars attended the seminar. Dr. S Anand gave introduction to medical Images and spoke about various Medical Image Enhancement Techniques. He also explained how to do the research in this fi eld.
Í Faculty members and par cipants during seminar TIRUCHIRAPPALLI (REGION VII) Mr. Srinivasa Reddy Bala, Assistant Engineer, 21 January 2014: Lecture on “Back-up and Restoration of File Server” Information Technology Solutions & Services, BHEL, Lecture covered Introduction to BackUp and Restoration of File Server Using Tiruchirappalli NetBackUp for disaster recovery. Backup, Archive and restoration through NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous system. It provides cross- platform backup functionality to a large variety of windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems. NetBackup administrators can set up periodic or calendar-based schedules to perform automatic, unattended backups for clients across a network. An administrator can carefully schedule backups to achieve systematic and complete backups over a period of time, and optimize network traffi c during off -peak hours.
Í Mr. Srinivasa Reddy Bala delivering lecture
From Student Branches » http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csic-chapters-sbs-news SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST AES INSTITUTE OF COMPUTER STUDIES (AESICS), AHMEDABAD (REGION-III) Mrs. Shefali Naik and Ms. Kunjal Gajjar 17 December 2014: Workshop on “Requirements Management using Software Engineering Tool” Speakers explained the importance of requirements in software development. Participants prepared System Requirement Specifi cation documentation for the given case. More than 50 participants attended the workshop.
Í Faculty members conduc ng the workshop BVRIT HYDERABAD COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FOR WOMEN, HYDERABAD (REGION-V) Mr. Srinath Reddy Ganta, Director & Technical Head 14-15 February 2014: Two-days Workshop on “Android Application Coign Edu & IT Services Ltd. Development” Mr. Srinath introduced basics of mobile application platform. Workshop provided application oriented sessions which taught building of mobile applications for android. Workshop focused on topics such as introduction to Android, Building Blocks of Android Applications, Idea Generation, Android Architecture, User Interface & Resources, Eclipse, Java & Design and App Marketing.
Í Welcome speech by Principal Dr. KVN Sunitha
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 48 www.csi-india.org SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST EAST POINT COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, BANGALORE (REGION-V) Mrs. Savitha Gowda, Convener-ISEA project C-DAC 13 February 2014: One-day Workshop on “Information Security” and Dr. Prakash S Main objective of this programme was to create Information Security Awareness among students and teachers. Presentation included topics such as Cyber Crime/Espionage Incidents, Hacking, Cyber etiquette and Cyber laws, animated short fi lms on cyber threats, Discussion about Information Security Awareness, reinforcing the essential Internet safety rules.
Í Dr. Prakash handed over bouquet to Mrs. Savitha Gowda HKBK COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, BANGALORE (REGION-V) Jigar Halani, Sandip Tikar, Himanshu Dhar, 20-24 January 2014: Five-days FDP on “Enabling Technologies for Exascale Ananda Sekhar Bhattacharjee, Manish Bali, Narayan Computing” Kulkarni, Sangamesh Banappa, Pramod KP and Mr. Halani delivered keynote address. Workshop had participants from Dr. Waseem Ahmed various colleges of Karnataka and an international participant from UK, who was sponsored by University of Reading, UK. Technical sessions covered topics like programming languages, compilers, architectures, benchmarks, applications, research challenges, networks and storage related to Exascale Computing.
Í On Dias L-R: Dr. Mala V Pa l, Abdul Hameed SA, Jigar Halani and Dr. TC Manjunath SASI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING, ANDHRA PRADESH (REGION-V) Mr. Pramod Mooriath, VP (Delivery & Operations), 24-25 January 2014: Two-days Workshop on “Hands on Android Mobile Qatalys, Chennai, India. Development” It was Hands on Practical Workshop. Android Development Book & Study Material was provided to students. Students learnt to work with basics of Android and understand the role of Java in its applications, test and debug Android applications, Store and retrieve data, use location services and maps, integrate search into applications, publish apps to the App Marketplace, build web applications and to implement Android development best practices. Í Mr. Pramod instruc ng students on how to deploy android apps during training ADHIYAMAAN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, HOSUR, TN (REGION-VII) Mr. Bindhumadhava, Dr. George Dharma Prakashraj and 4-5 October 2013: Two-days National Level workshop on “Research Trends Dr. L Ravi in Information Technology and Applications” Workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Bindhumadhava. Goal was to bring together researchers from both academia and industry to discuss recent advances, to identify future directions in research on Computer Networks and Data Mining and to foster interdisciplinary collaborative research in this area. Through this workshop hands-on session was provided. Workshop covered discussion on recent developments, new designs and ideas in the fi eld of Networks and Data Mining. Í Prin. Dr. G Ranganath presen ng memento to Chief Guest Mr. Bindhumadhava DR.SIVANTHI ADITANAR COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, TIRUCHENDUR (REGION-VII) Mr. S Sethuramalingam, Associate Prof. & Head/CSE, 29 January 2014: National Conference on “Innovations and Advances in Aditanar College of arts and Science,Tiruchendur Computing and Technology” The speaker gave thought provoking speech and insisted that students should cultivate diverse thinking. Conference was conducted to bring out research ideas of students in various areas like image processing, cloud computing, multimedia, grid computing, 4G technologies and Ethical Hacking.
Í Prof. Kalaivani, Prof. Kamaraj, Mr. S Sethuramalingam, Dr. J Maheswaran and Prof. Ahila
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 49 SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, TIRUNELVELI (REGION-VII) Mr. Nagarajkumar Narayanan, Senior fi rmware 2 January 2014: Guest lecture on “Filling the gap between Industries and development engineer LSI Research and Development Academics” Mr. Narayanan explained current trends and spoke about skill set needed by students in the current world. He also gave examples from technical interviews and how students should prepare themselves to face interviews.
Í Mr. Nagarajkumar Narayanan addressing students G R GOVINDARAJULU SCHOOL OF APPLIED COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY, COIMBATORE, TN (REGION-VII) Student chapter 3 January 2014: Movie Making Contest Participants were asked to create Movie on themes such as - Impact of Social Networking, Traditional and Modern Women, and Mobile Phone – Advantages and Disadvantages. The winner and runner were selected and cash prizes were awarded to them.
Í Movie making Contest for all under graduate students JEPPIAAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CHENNAI (REGION-VII) Student chapter 4 January 2014: Online Workshop on “C and C++” Workshop provided inputs to students about basics and structuring of C and C++ Languages for real world software development with examples. Nearly 120 students from Computer Science and Engineering & Information Technology Participated.
Í Students Par cipa ng in Workshop S.A. ENGINEERING COLLEGE, CHENNAI (REGION-VII) Mr. S Ramasamy and Mr. S Gobi Krishnan 28 October 2013: CSI Awareness Program Chief Guest Mr. Ramasamy briefed about benefi ts of CSI activities. He briefed about current trends and needs of IT fi eld. He also gave wonderful tips to students for placement. Mr. Gobi Krishnan delivered lecture on Relational Data Base Management Systems which included basic concepts of database, and architecture and various applications.
Í Mr. S Ramasamy addressing the students Toc H INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, ARAKKUNNAM (REGION-VII) Mr. Soman SP, Ms. Manjusha Devi and 16 January 2014: FOSS Day 2014 based on the theme “FOSS based Startups” Mr. Sijo Kuruvilla George Major events were Mozilla Firefox OS app development workshop, coding hunt, open source hardware project competition, python workshop and open source expo. CSI award winners and offi ce bearers were honored during the event.
Í Mr. Soman S P and Mr. Sijo Kuruvilla George addressing students OXFORD ENGINEERING COLLEGE, TRICHY, TAMILNADU (REGION-VII) Dr. D Sridharan, Additional Director, CFD, Anna University 31 January 2014: Guest Lecture on “Computer Architecture” During the Session following topics were covered – 1) Basic Structure of Computers - Instructions and Instruction Sequencing, CISC & RISC and Instruction Set Architecture and 2) Basic Processing Unit - Execution of a complete Instruction.
Í Audience with the resource person
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CSI Communications | March 2014 | 50 www.csi-india.org CSI Reports
From CSI SIGs / Divisions / Regions and Other News » Please check detailed reports and news at: http://www.csi-india.org/web/guest/csic-reports
SPEAKER(S) TOPIC AND GIST CSI YITP AWARD CEREMONY AT HI-TECH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (HIT) BHUBANESWAR Juries were Dr RN Behera, Dr AK Nayak, Dr A Basu, Mr Sanjay 21 February 2014: CSI YITP Award Ceremony Mohapatra, Dr Rachita Mishra and Mr MR Pattnaik This was a project-based contest program on 5 categories viz. - Software, Hardware, Application, Communication and Education & Research. Four groups from KIIT, CVRCE, IIIT, GITA engineering colleges participated. Winner Pradipta Kumar Das from KIIT received Cash prize Rs. 10,000/- with Medal & certifi cate. First runner up Abhay Kumar Sahoo (CVRCE) received Rs. 5,000/-, Medal and certifi cate. Second runner up Sudhir Kumar Mohapatra (GITA) received Rs 3.000/- and certifi cate. All participants were given certifi cates.
Í Awards giving in progress
Following new Student Branches Were Opened as Detailed Below –
REGION V SASI Institute of Technology and Engineering, Andhra Pradesh Inaugural function of CSI Student Branch for the academic year 2013-14 was held on 24th January 2014 at the hands of the Mr. Pramod Mooriath, Vice Chairman, Chairman Elect of CSI- Chennai in the presence of Dr. K Bhanu Prasad (Principal, SITE), Prof. M Venketeswara Rao (Dean T&P), Prof. Ch Seshu Babu (Academic Director), M V S S Nagendranadh (HOD CSE) and all faculty members of the CSE & IT Department.
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CSI Communications | March 2014 | 51 H R Mohan CSI Calendar Vice President, CSI & Chairman, Conf. Committee 2014 Email: [email protected]
Date Event Details & Organizers Contact Information
March 2014 events
3 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Quiz National Finals at Kochi Ms. Uma Devi [email protected] 5 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Project Contest at Coimbatore (Region VII) Ms. Priyadarshini [email protected] 5–7 Mar 2014 INDIACom – 2014: 8th INDIACom; 2014 International Conference on Computing for Prof. M N Hoda Sustainable Global Computing [email protected] At Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi, Technically Sponsored by CSI Delhi Chapter, Region – I, Div – I, II, III, IV and V, IEEE Delhi, ISTE Delhi and IETE Delhi http://www.bvicam.ac.in/indiacom 6–7 Mar 2014 Comprehensive Conference on Eff ective Integration of Analytic Tools with Business Prof. Chandan Singhavi Decision Needs [email protected] Organised by K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research at Vidyavihar, Mumbai http://simsr-itconference.com/ 7-8 Mar 2014 International Conference on Innovative Advancements in Engineering and Technology Dr. Dharm Singh organised by Jaipur National University Jaipur, SIG-WNs and DIV IV CSI, DST, IETE, IEI [email protected] and CEERI Mr. Anshuman Kalla http://www.jnujaipur.ac.in/IAET/ [email protected] 7-8 Mar 2014 NSC – 2014: National Students’ Convention on Computing for Nation Development Prof. M N Hoda At Bharati Vidyapeeth’s Institute of Computer Applications and Management, New Delhi, [email protected] Technically Sponsored by CSI Delhi, Region – I, Div – I 7–8 Mar 2014 ETCEE-2014: National Conference on Emerging Trends in Computer and Electrical Prof. Rashmi Agrawal Engineering [email protected] Organized by Atmiya Institute of Technology & Science, Rajkot http:/etcee2014.in [email protected] 14-15 Mar 2014 COMNET 2014: International Conference on Communication and Networks Organised Dr. Sundaresan CSI Coimbatore and CSI Div IV Theme : Next Generation Networks for Cloud and Mobility [email protected] Venue : P.S.G. College of Technology, Coimbatore www.csi-cbe.org 15 Mar 2014 NCITIPM-2014: National Conference on Innovative Trends in Information Processing and Dr. Kavita Pabreja Management kavita_pabreja@rediff mail.com Organised by Maharaja Surajmal Institute www.msi-ggsip.org Ms. Pooja Singh, [email protected] 15 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Project Contest at Delhi (Region I) Prof. Kavita avita_pabreja@rediff mail.com 15 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Project Contest at Guntur (Region V) Prof. Praveen Krishna [email protected] 21-22 Mar 2014 National Conference on Recent Advances in Computing and Communications Dr. S T Deepa at Shri Shankarlal Sundarbai Shasun Jain College for Women, Chennai. Organized by [email protected] Computer Society of India, Chennai Chapter 22 Mar 2014 Alan Turing Quiz Finals at Shri Shankarlal Sundarbai Shasun Jain College for Women, Chennai Mr. P Kumar [email protected] 22 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Project Contest at MIT, Pune Prof. Pradnya [email protected] 26 Mar 2014 CSI Discover Thinking Project Contest Finals at Narsinhbhai Institute of Computer Studies Dr. Nilesh K Modi and Management, Kadi [email protected] April 2014 events
11-13 Apr 2014 TAMC-2014: 11th Annual Conference on Theory and Applications of Models of Computation Dr. T V Gopal At Chennai, Organised by CSI Div II & Anna University http://www.annauniv.edu/tamc2014/ [email protected] 24-25 Apr 2014 AOSMT-2014: 2nd National Seminar and Workshop on Advances in Open Source Mobile Dr. Dharm Singh [email protected] Technologies at Ahmedabad. Organized by SIG-WNs, CSI Ahemdabad Chapter Dr. Nilesh Modi [email protected] Amit Joshi [email protected] May 2014 events
17 May 2014 WTISD 2014:Broadband for Sustainable Development Dr. Dharm Singh organised by SIG-WNs- CSI and IEI ULC [email protected]
CSI Communications | March 2014 | 52 www.csi-india.org June 2014 events
2–4 Jun 2014 IFIP Networking 2014 Conference Prof. S V Raghavan At Trondheim, Norway http://networking2014.item.ntnu.no/ [email protected]
August 2014 events
8–9 Aug 2014 ICICSE: II International Conference on Innovations in Computer Science and Engineering Dr. H S Saini, [email protected] At Hyderabad. Organized by Guru Nanak Institutions, Ibrahimpatnam, Hyderabad in Dr. D D Sarma association with Computer Society of India, Div IV [email protected] 20 Aug 2014 Workshop on "Ethernet LAN Construction using Crossover and Patch Cable" Mr. K C Arun Organized by CSI SB and Dept. of IT, Nalla Malla Reddy Engineering College, Hyderabad [email protected]
December 2014 events
19-21 Dec 2014 EAIT-2014: Fourth International Conference on Emerging Applications of Information Prof. Aditya Bagchi Technology Dr. Debasish Jana organized by CSI Kolkata Chapter at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata Prof. Pinakpani Pal https://sites.google.com/site/csieait/ For paper ssubmission visit Prof. R T Goswami https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/EAIT2014 [email protected]
FORM IV (Rule No. 8)
Statement about ownership and other particulars of the ‘CSI Communications’
1. Place of Publication Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, Marol MIDC Area, Andheri (E). Mumbai 400 093. 2. Periodicity of its Publication Monthly
3. Printers Name Mr. Suchit Gogwekar Nationality Indian Address Computer Society of India Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, Marol MIDC Area, Andheri (E). Mumbai 400 093. 4. Publishers Name Mr. Suchit Gogwekar Nationality Indian Address Computer Society of India Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, Marol MIDC Area, Andheri (E). Mumbai 400 093.
5. Editor’s Name Dr. R M Sonar Nationality Indian Address Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian institute of Technology, Powai, Mumbai-400 076.
6. Names and Address of Individuals who own the Computer Society of India newspaper and partners or shareholders holding Unit No. 3, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, more than one percent of the total capital Marol MIDC Area, Andheri (E). Mumbai 400 093.
I, Suchit Gogwekar, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to my knowledge and belief.
Sd/- Suchit Gogwekar 1st March, 2014 Signature of the Publisher Registered with Registrar of News Papers for India - RNI 31668/78 If undelivered return to : Regd. No. MH/MR/N/222/MBI/12-14 Samruddhi Venture Park, Unit No.3, Posting Date: 10 & 11 every month. Posted at Patrika Channel Mumbai-I 4th fl oor, MIDC, Andheri (E). Mumbai-400 093 Date of Publication: 10 & 11 every month 2014 Fourth International Conference on Emerging Applications of Information Technology (EAIT 2014) Organized by the Computer Society of India, Kolkata Chapter December 19-21, 2014 at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India Technical Co-Sponsors: IEEE Computer Society; Computer Chapter, IEEE Kolkata Section; IEEE TC-Security & Privacy; IEEE TC-Computational Life Sciences; ISI and BIT Mesra Last Date for Paper Submission: May 15, 2014
General Chairs Organizing Chairs Finance Chairs Program Chairs Tutorial Chairs Public Relations Chairs Bimal K Roy Devaprasanna Sinha R Tamal Goswami Debasish Jana Subho Chaudhuri Jyotsna K Mandal Aditya Bagchi Sib Daspal Phalguni Mukherjee Pinakpani Pal Subhasis Dasgupta Sushanta Sinha
Organizing Committee Members** CALL FOR PAPER AND PARTICIPATION A Nag G Nag J Kundu S K Lahiri S Roychaudhury Original unpublished contributions are solicited for presentation at EAIT 2014. Papers A Dutta G Hajra N Roy S Karan cannot be submitted in parallel to any other conference or journal. The topics of interest International Program Committee Members** include but are not limited to: A A Desai (India) N Chaki (India) A Banerjee (Spain) N Chakravarty (India) Image Processing, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition A Chakrabarti (India) N Chatterjee (India) o Image Processing o Artifi cial Intelligence o Natural Language Understanding A Chaudhuri (India) N Mukherjee (India) o Computer Vision o Expert Systems o Semantic Applications and Interface A De Sarkar (India) N Ray (Canada) o Pattern Recognition A Dutta (India) P Dutta (India) Machine Learning, Data Mining and Computational Life Sciences A Ghosh (India) P K Jana (India) o Artifi cial Neural Networks o Data Mining o Bioinformatics A Guha (USA) P Maji (India) o Fuzzy Logic o Web Intelligence o Systems Biology A Gupta (India) P Mitra (India) o Rough Sets o Intelligent Agent Technology o Medical Informatics A K Laha (India) P Nagabhushan (India) o Evolutionary Optimization o Virtual Reality & Visualization o Healthcare Informatics A Kumar (India) P Saha (USA) A Mukherjee (India) P Sarkar (India) Management of Data including Big Data and Analytics A Viola (Uruguay) P Uppuluri (USA) o Database Design o Languages to describe Data, Defi ne Access and B B Chaudhuri (India) R Buyya (Australia) o Knowledge of the Data Manipulate Databases B C Dhara (India) R Dasgupta (USA) and its Processing o Strategies and Mechanisms for Data Access, Security B C Patel (India) R K Chatterjee (India) o Business Intelligence and Integrity Control B Chanda (India) R Kumar (India) o Business Informatics o Management and Control of Very Large Databases B Dam (India) R M Gulati (India) B K Mishra (India) S Agarwal (India) Distributed and Mobile Systems including Grid and Cloud infrastructure B N Saha (USA) S B Sadkhan (Iraq) o Grid, Cloud and Mobile Computing o Decentralized Control with Logical and Physical C Mazumdar (India) S Babu (India) o Distributed Databases Interconnection & Communication D A Grier (USA) S Basu (USA) o Internetworking from Software o Cluster and Grid Interconnection Networks D C Schmidt (USA) S Bhattacharya (India) Perspective o Resource and Scheduling Management Policies D Chakraborty (Mexico) S Biswas (India) o Application Development on o VLSI, High Performance and High Availability D Mukhopadhyay (India) S Chakraborty (USA) Parallel Machines Computing Applications D P Mandal (India) S Chattopadhyay (India) o Design and Analysis of Parallel o Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture D P Muni (India) S Chowdhuri (India) Architectures and Algorithms (SOA) D Saha (India) S Jajodia (USA) D Sinha (India) S K Saha (India) Information Security and Privacy D Tarafdar (USA) S K Sanyal (India) o Access Control Mechanisms o Database Protection o Privacy Protection F Kerschbaum (Germany) S Maitra (India) o Operating System Security o Network Security o Data Security G Garai (India) S Majumdar (Canada) o Data Encryption o Embedded Systems G Sahoo (India) S Mitra (India) Paper Submission and Review Process I Bloch (France) S Mitra (USA) The papers must be submitted ONLINE using double column IEEE format through I Ray (USA) S Mukhopadhyaya (India) Microsoft’s CMT site. Please follow the author instructions for paper format and other J Tang (USA) S Neogy (India) important information before submitting the paper for review. The submitted paper must K Banerjee (India) S P Maity (India) be complete in all respects and must include results, fi gures, references etc. Review K Dutta (Singapore) S Roy (USA) K Kaur Chahal (India) S S Basu (India) process will be double blind. PC will reject papers without review if the submission is not K Majumdar (USA) S Samanta (India) in proper format. K Roy (India) S Sarker (USA) Plagiarism of any form will lead to outright rejection of the paper. M Banerjee (India) S T Hasson (Iraq) Publication M Mitra (India) T Chattopadhyay (India) EAIT 2014 proceedings will be published by the IEEE and will be made digitally available M Nasipuri (India) U Acharya (Singapore) in IEEE Xplore subject to fulfi lling necessary conference registration and presentation M Pakhira (India) U Bhattacharya (India) formalities. EAIT 2014 conference and conference proceedings will meet IEEE's quality N A Abbas (Iraq) U Garain (India) standards, and IEEE reserves the right not to include any paper in the proceedings that do N B Hui (India) U Pal (India) not meet IEEE standards. **As on Feb 25, 2014 W S Nugroho (Indonesia)
FOR LATEST UPDATES AND MORE DETAILS: Conference Website: https://sites.google.com/site/csieait/ Online Paper Submission Website: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/EAIT2014